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Broadband dedication crosses the Great Lakes
A fiber-optic infrastructure dedication to celebrate the completed segments of a Broadband stimulus project and a connection between the two peninsulas took place Tuesday.
Merit Network, Inc. held the event in both the Mackinaw Area Public Library and the St. Ignace Public Library simultaneously on Tuesday. The two locations hosted key stakeholders for the project, who made comments on the positive impacts the project will have on Northern Michigan. Speakers at each location were shown via video at both places to show what the new fiber was capable of.
Senator Carl Levin made some opening comments over video conferencing from Washington, D.C. Other representatives from Merit Network, libraries, schools, townships, political offices and the Mackinac Bridge Authority also made statements.
Merit Network Public Relations Communications & Community Development Director Patty Giorgio has said although there is still work left to do in the western Upper Peninsula, the three partner universities in the Upper Peninsula, including Lake Superior State University, Michigan Tech and Northern Michigan University, are now tied into Lower Peninsula universities with a 10 gigabyte connection.
Cheboygan County was included in Round II of the project, of which several segments are complete. J. Ranck Electric of Mt. Pleasant was the primary contractor for the six segments of the fiber optic build that touch Cheboygan County.
Merit is a middle-mile provider, which means it only coordinates the running of the main fiber. It will be up to local Internet service providers and sub-recipients to bring Broadband service to homes and businesses. Fifty-two counties make up the project service area.
Giorgio said business owners and residents who are interested in Broadband service should visit the Merit website and fill out an electronic form. This will help sub-recipients prioritize which areas of each county have the biggest need and interest so they can start leveraging the service out to those homes and businesses.
Local Internet service providers can also connect and use the fiber for their customers as long as there is still capacity by contacting Merit.
The Rural, Education, Anchor, Community and Healthcare-Merit's Michigan Middle Mile Collaborative (REACH-3MC) is a project to construct more than 2,200 miles of broadband infrastructure in rural and underserved areas throughout Michigan.
This network is being constructed with the assistance of two American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Broadband Technology Opportunities Program grants in the amount of $102 million, along with a 20 percent match in funds from Merit and its seven sub-recipients. The REACH-3MC project is one of the largest Broadband Technology Opportunities Program projects in the country and is expected to serve 52 counties in both the Upper and Lower Peninsulas.
Progress reports on the entire project are accessible via the Web and are organized by counties along the network routes, with periodic updates posted. The Web site can be accessed at www.merit.edu/meritformichigan/


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Merseyside's 120,400 Tax Credits claimants urged to renew early and online
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is urging 120,400 people who receive Tax Credits across Merseyside to renew their Tax Credits claim online, as soon as possible ahead of the deadline in July. People who don't renew by the deadline will have their payments stopped so it's vital they do it as soon as possible. And improvements to the online system mean it's never been so easy. For the 1st time anyone can now renew online, regardless of what changes they have to make. Previously, large numbers of customers had to call us or renew by post. But this is no longer the case and HMRC is urging everyone to beat the queue and get online. When customers renew their claim, they must tell HMRC about any changes to their circumstances that they haven't already reported, including changes to working hours, childcare costs or income. Everyone can notify HMRC of these changes on Gov.UK when they receive their pack and renew their claim. The online service has proved very popular, with nearly nine in 10 people using it saying they were happy with the process. On average, it takes 10 to 20 minutes to renew online, depending on circumstances, but many renew their claim in just 6 minutes. A special team is there to support the most vulnerable customers who cannot go online, and some 2,000 people who we know need special support will be proactively contacted by our customer support teams. Nick Lodge, HMRC�s Director General, Benefits and Credits, said:- "This is an exceptionally busy time of the year for HMRC, as millions of people renew their tax credits. Phone lines may be very busy with long wait times possible. Using our online service means that you can renew at any time of the day or night, and on any device, without having to call us at all. Online help can also answer most queries or issues that you may have. We urge everyone who can to go online. People should check their details and renew early to ensure they get the right money. The sooner people renew their claim, the sooner we can check payments are correct, meaning we avoid paying too little money, or too much, which claimants then have to be pay back." Online help and information on Tax Credits renewals is available on:- Gov.UK. The packs are sent out from April to June in advance of the 31 July deadline.

subset: commoncrawl


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Student groups at Washington University in St. Louis (Wash U) recently collaborated to use art to draw attention to human rights violations wrought by climate change and demand environmentally conscious school endowment investments.
Green Action, a student organization committed to environmental activism, joined with Material Monster, a student group dedicated to exploring environmental issues through art, to erect a Climate Change: Stories for Social Justice exhibit on the lawn outside the Women's Building on Wash U's Danforth Campus on Sept. 15.
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Rachel Goldstein, a 21-year-old environmental biology major, helped spearhead the project, describing it as an "illustration of the story of social injustice in the context of climate change."
The exhibit features 13 images that tell the stories of communities across the globe impacted by climate change. It shows the leaking coal ash landfill in Labadie, Missouri, and the ravages of tar sands extraction in Northern Alberta, Canada. It aesthetically connects US wildfires to anthropogenic climate effects, and it tells the story of Shell oil extraction in the Niger Delta. The artwork also shows how the low-lying Maldives Island is threatened by rising sea levels – an issue taken up by the country's ex-President Mohamed Nasheed, a committed climate activist.
"A major theme throughout each piece is the disproportionate effects of climate change felt by communities who use little fossil fuels themselves and do not profit from the industry," student activists wrote. Climate justice activists have long endeavored to point out how the greatest ecological externalities from natural resource depletion for capital accumulation are felt by the poor and most vulnerable.
Many of the stories and artwork for the exhibit came from students who either researched or traveled to the different locations where people have been most affected, Goldstein said.
Drawing on inspiration from other reflective convergence of activism and art, like Steve Lambert's "Capitalism Works for Me! (True/False)" exhibit for the French Institute Alliance Française fall festival in New York City, students at Wash U repurposed sliding glass doors to display narrative images and used mirror film to entreat reflection, in more ways than one.
Instead of being rapt with the aura of the artwork, people who experience the exhibit see their reflection as they observe the havoc climate change is causing worldwide.
"That reflective film is sort of a way to bring the viewer in and let them know they're part of the problem, but they're also part of the solution," Goldstein said, adding that students specifically designed the piece that way while also trying to connect the dots and showcase the penetrating nature of the problem.
"Because what we noticed is a lot of students on campus weren't able to draw the connection between environmental justice and human [rights] issues," she said. "So what we were trying to show people is that there are so many intersectionalities when it comes to environmental activism – such as race, ethnicity, culture, capitalism [and] socioeconomic status, of course. . . . We're really trying to connect the human issue, and it's something that people don't always recognize."
Stories for Social Justice extends the "new architecture of protest," with double entendre implicit in its design. The project is an outgrowth of the Fossil Free campaign undertaken by more than 300 colleges encouraging institutions to divest from the fossil fuel industry.
The campaign at Wash U pushes for extricating the university's $5.3 billion endowment from fossil fuel industries, freezing environmentally irresponsible investments and divesting from direct ownership of ecologically injurious enterprise.
"By building an investment portfolio that will not profit off of the wrecking of the climate, the university would be aligning its voice with its values," said Caitlin Lee, a Wash U student coordinating art and activism with Material Monster, which collaborated with Goldstein and Green Action to creatively negate the negativity of for-profit plundering of the environment.
Stories for Social Justice shows how everyone is culpable for climate change, but the campaign also stresses that universities have the wherewithal to opt for more sustainable investment alternatives.
Students are calling on Chancellor Mark Wrighton to freeze investments in fossil fuel companies. In addition to awareness-raising art, they are drafting a student senate resolution and working with the student union to have the full force of the campus conscience behind them as they pressure the administration to end its financial relations with actors underpinning current climate disasters. Environmental catastrophe looms without substantive redirection, activists warn.
Prevailing trends at Wash U are indicative of the larger "catastrophic management of catastrophe," that Jérôme Roos, PhD researcher at the European University Institute in Florence, says is part of the "neoliberal policy response," reliant on market-based measures. The European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme epitomizes that policy, Roos says, because it "provided the steel and coal industries with so many excess allowances that," estimates now suggest "companies with the worst carbon footprint in Europe can now afford to grow their total emissions by another 50 percent until 2020."
A similar, smaller-scale market-based approach and top-down decision-making mitigates climate activism at Wash U. Goldstein said students had meetings with the administration last semester to discuss the divestment campaign, but did not receive concrete answers. The lack of transparency regarding the university's endowment allocation complicates the process, she said.
"We know from some students who have been very involved in endowment activism that the school is invested in fossil fuel companies," Goldstein said. "But they actually aren't transparent with us so we don't know which ones."
Goldstein said the institutional organization at Wash U currently prevents students from having much of a say in where the university invests its funds.
But divestment and eco-friendly democratizing investment on the part of anchor institutions, like universities, is not without precedent.
A June 2013 report from The Democracy Collaborative and the Responsible Endowments Coalition, Raising Student Voices, found that huge pools of investment capital from university endowment funds can be, and have been, used to revitalize communities.
Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, the report noted, has lent support to the local Evergreen Cooperative Initiative, as part of an administration-led and student-supported project, allocating "part of their procurement to the worker coops in support of a larger community and wealth-building agenda." The purchasing power of the university, buoyed by a "community-serving nonprofit corporation and a revolving loan fund," augments the Evergreen project, which "includes a solar installation and weatherization company, an industrial scale ecologically advanced laundry, and a green house," capable of producing more than three million heads of lettuce a year.
Student-led campaigns at the University of Chicago, Fordham University and Wesleyan University all successfully pressured their respective administrations to allocate thousands of dollars from operating budgets and endowments to engage in socially responsible community investment, the report states. It also notes that fostering new partnerships while working with alumni can boost effectiveness of student initiatives, and recounts that the South Africa apartheid divestment campaign lasted decades, indicating the need for commitment for the duration.
Goldstein said students involved in the Fossil Free campaign at Wash U have reached out to alumni and are strengthening relations with other environmental groups, like Rain Forest Action Network.
Cognizant that the investment management company at Wash U maintains a "pretty strong hold" regarding investment choices, Goldstein said "the first step is just getting it out there that we don't want to see them investing in these really harmful companies," while pushing for greater transparency, establishing substantive dialogue and cultivating critical collective consciousness via artistic public pedagogy.
In addition, the negation of ecologically sound practices advanced by current investment procedures necessitate creative negation through other means, students assert. In the case of the latest Stories for Social Justice installment, the means of that artful negation include glass salvaged from Thurtene Carnival at Wash U through a material exchange program, as well as doors procured from ReFab St. Louis, a nonprofit that deconstructs buildings slated for demolition to train community members for green industry careers.
Using art to elicit a visceral response resonates with the community, Goldstein says, and it piques a lot of student interest.
"It's just been really great to see how much student support we've seen," she said. "It shows me at least that our generation isn't apathetic, and we do care."
Students now hope the administration will show that it cares too, and that administrators reflect on the situation at hand to realize they are part of the problem but can also be part of the solution.
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Few events have crystallized U.S. fears over a cyber catacystrophe, or brought on calls for a strategic response, more than the recent attacks against Google and more than 30 other tech firms.
The company's disclosure in January that it was attacked by China-based hackers -- and its subsequent decision to scale back operations there -- have stoked long-standing fears over the ability of cyber adversaries to penetrate commercial and government networks in the U.S.
[ Also on InfoWorld: "Researchers track cyber-espionage ring to China." | InfoWorld's Roger Grimes explains how to stop data leaks in an enlightening 30-minute Webcast, Data Loss Prevention, which covers the tools and techniques used by experienced security pros. ]
If a full-fledged cyber war were to break out, the nation's economy would be hit hard. Banks might not be able function, electricity, water and other utilities could be shut off, air travel would almost certainly be disrupted, and communications would be spotty at best -- in a word, chaos.
Few think that such a war is imminent. But damage has already been done by a slew of cyber attacks that, while well short of cyber war, have still resulted in the theft of terabytes of intellectual property data, trade secrets and classified military and government information. That information is now in the hands of overseas groups, many of which are thought to be state-sponsored.
It's not just data and secrets. cyber thieves have also made off with billions of dollars from U.S companies and banks, and there are growing concerns that cyber attackers are making subtle changes to software source code. That way, they can create permanent windows into a company's operations for future mischief.
An 'existential threat'
Many see the attacks as evidence that the U.S. is already in the midst of an undeclared cyber war, with attacks against government targets estimated to have more than doubled in the past two years. Just last week, a top FBI official called cyber attacks an "existential threat" to the U.S. On Friday, two U.S. senators now pushing cyber security legislation in Congress reiterated those sentiments.
And Mike McConnell the former director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and director of national intelligence during the Bush administration, recently said in a Washington Post column that the U.S is not only fighting such a war, it's also losing the battle.
That sentiment was echoed by U.S. Navy Admiral Robert Willard. who warned Congress about U.S military and government networks being hit by attacks that appeared to originate from China. The attacks are challenging the military's ability to "operate freely in the cyber commons," he said.
Those views are shared by security experts in both the government and the private sector who see the relentless probing and attacks on U.S agencies and commercial interests as a precursor to something more devastating. The concern is prompting action of sorts in Washington. In just the past month, two major cyber security bills have been proposed. One would tie U.S financial aid to a country's willingness to fight cyber crime. The other would strengthen domestic cyber security and require the president to work with private industry in responding to a cyber crisis. That's a forgone conclusion, given how much of the nation's cyber infrastructure is in private hands.
A cyber security ambassador?
Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department is rumored to be considering the creation of a cyber security ambassador for the U.N. That's important, since there's no settled definition of cyber war, and various nations are already trying to figure out what a cyber war entails and how it would be declared -- and fought.
The first step to formulating an organized response is to define cyber war correctly, said Robert Rodriguez, a former Secret Service special agent and founder of the Security Innovation Network. Calling what's gone on in recent years a "cyber war" only complicates things, he said.
"War connotes huge conflict at a grand level between nations and societies," Rodriguez said.
It also involves the use of military force to essentially destroy another nation's capabilities and will to resist, according to James Lews, director and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The cyber equivalent of such a conflict would involve a nation using cyber means to attain political ends in another country, said Lewis, who led a commission that developed a set of cyber security recommendations for President Obama last year.
"When you look at the number of systems that have been Trojaned or compromised, you could say our cyber battlefield has been prepped and can be used against us," admits Jerry Dixon, former director of the National cyber Security Division at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
"However, the adversary has to decide if the intelligence they're getting from our systems and networks is more valuable than attacking them to take them offline," he said. "If they attack and take them offline, they will lose insight into what we're doing."
Making such distinctions is crucial from a strategic response standpoint. "Pronouncements that we are in a cyber war or face cyber terror conflate problems and make effective response more difficult," Lewis said.
So if the attacks of recent years aren't warfare, what are they?
Spies or criminals?
A lot of what's going on is happening on two levels: cyber espionage and cyber crime on a massive -- and growing -- scale. They aren't new, said Patricia Titus, the former chief information security officer at the Transportation Security Administration who now holds a similar post at Unisys Corp. But the attacks on Google and other companies refocused attention on the scope of the problem, she said.
Many of the recent attacks tended to originate from China, though countries such as Russia and India are also suspect. Specific companies and government organizations are usually targeted through the use of social engineering tricks, advanced reconnaissance and sophisticated malware tools that can quietly penetrate networks and steal data. What's not always clear is whether this kind of economic and military espionage is state-sponsored or carried out by hactivists and opportunists.
Other attacks, especially those from Eastern Europe, aim to steal money from banks, businesses, educational institutions and individuals. Most recently, cyber attacks have targeted small and midsize businesses, some of which have been forced out of business or into bankruptcy.
A nexus of bad guys
Increasingly, there appears to be a nexus between the groups committing cyber theft and those doing cyber espionage, said Amit Yoran, former director of the National cyber Security Division of the DHS and current CEO of NetWitness Corp. Many of the botnets, servers, malware tools and techniques now used in cyber crime are also being used for espionage. "Where traditionally a [state-run] intelligence service would execute their own operations, now they have ties with organized crime," he said.
Those kinds of connections -- loose, fluid and constantly changing -- make fending off cyber attacks difficult. As a result, a successful strategic response means that the intelligence community, the U.S Secret Service, FBI and other law enforcement agencies have to start collaborating more, security analysts say. And more information-sharing between the private and public sectors needs to take place.
The vast majority of the critical infrastructure in the U.S. is owned by the private sector. But most companies have little or no information about the wealth of threat data being collected by intelligence and other government agencies, Titus said. If they're unaware of the threats, they may be vulnerable.
At the international level, moves like the proposal to create a U.N. cyber ambassador who can negotiate cyber security matters and articulate U.S. policy are crucial, Titus said. In fact, she wants the State Department to consider installing cyber attachés at U.S. embassies in key countries such as China, India and Russia. That way, the U.S government could quickly communicate with the appropriate authorities in other countries during a cyber crisis. It also gives U.S firms operating in countries such as India and China -- think Google -- a place to turn to immediately when a crisis flares, she said.
The government also needs to focus on continuous monitoring and situational awareness by creating an early-warning system that could sniff out attacks, said Karen Evans, former de facto federal CIO under the Bush administration. Getting a jump on an attack would allow government agencies to respond in a coordinated fashion, she said.
No national policy
Evans believes the time has come for the government to formalize a national policy for dealing with cyber threats. Such a policy should clearly define the thresholds beyond which cyber attacks will be considered an act of war, establish who's in charge among the different federal agencies that would respond to a cyber crisis, and spell out when they are allowed to use that authority.
Few doubt that the U.S. Department of Defense and the NSA could launch crippling cyber offensives of their own in response to a cyber attack. But a policy framework needs to be in place defining when such an offensive is appropriate, Yoran said. Whether that retaliation means a cyber-counteroffensive or a more conventional military one needs to be figured out as part of U.S. cyber policy before a crisis, Yoran said,
"Just as we would respond to a terrorist attack, there needs to be some sort of a response capability," Titus said.
Jaikumar Vijayan covers data security and privacy issues, financial services security and e-voting for Computerworld. Follow Jaikumar on Twitter at @jaivijayan or subscribe to Jaikumar's RSS feed. His e-mail address is email@example.com.
Read more about security in Computerworld's Security Knowledge Center.
This story, "After Google-China dust-up, cyber war emerges as a threat" was originally published by Computerworld.


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There have been rumors circulating on the internet for a while now about a Dell Streak 10″ tablet that would be called the Dell Streak Pro. Now the folks over at Android Central have come up with the proof. They have published a leaked tablet roadmap from Dell that lists, not just the Streak Pro, but two other tablets. The list features photos, release dates, and product specs.
The Streak Pro will pack an NVIDIA Tegra T25 processor and run Android Honeycomb. The 1280 x 800 resolution is standard for a 10″ device. There is no mention of memory or storage capacity. There really aren't any surprises here other than the release date of June, which is earlier than what had been rumored.
More of a surprise were the other two listings – Latitude ST tablet and the Latitude XT-3 convertible tablet. The ST is another 10 inch tablet, but pack a much stronger hardware punch than the Streak Pro. The ST will come with 1366 x 766 resolution, an Intel Oak Trail 1.5 GHz processor, 128 GB of storage, and 1080p output. The XT will, supposedly, ship in October. That's far enough away for a lot to change.
The XT-3 is a 13″ convertible with Windows 7 and a list of impressive hardware that includes an Intel i3, i5, or i7 processor, 4 GB of RAM, and 1080p output. The target date is July of 2011.
There were no prices listed and the dates are probably tentative at best. Of course, while all of this looks legitimate we can't write any of it in stone since it's a leak and there has been no confirmation from Dell.


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South African Journal of Education
On-line version ISSN 2076-3433
Print version ISSN 0256-0100
S. Afr. j. educ. vol.33 n.3 Pretoria Jan. 2013
Globalisation and the internationalisation of higher education in sub-Saharan Africa
Kuzvinetsa Peter DzvimboI; Kholeka Constance MoloiII
ICollege of Education, University of South Africa, email@example.com
IIFaculty of Human Sciences, Vaal University of Technology, email@example.com
In a shrinking world, in which a neo-liberal discourse has permeated sub-Saharan African higher education, critical reflection is required to assess the merits and demerits of globalisation. Research, intensive discussion and hearings conducted over a two-year period by the Task Force on Higher Education and Society, convened by the World Bank and United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for the purpose of exploring the future of higher education in the developing world, led to the conclusion that without more and better higher education, developing countries would find it increasingly difficult to benefit from the global knowledge economy. A decade later, we argue for a radical change in the traditional discourse on globalisation because of the emergence of countries such as China, South Africa, India, and Brazil as global players in the world economy. These emerging global powers, reframe the political and imperial philosophy at the epicentre of globalisation discourse - an economic creed, through their mutual consultation and coordination on significant political issues. Their economic and military capabilities enable them to influence the trade regime and thereby strengthen the voice of the developing world as a whole. In relation to this paper's inquiry, the cooperation of these emerging powers gives the free enfranchised people of the world an opportunity to choose a different path of international relations (internationalisation) formed on more liberal lines, as opposed to the neo-liberal economic rationality of globalisation. This paper therefore examines globalisation and internationalisation of higher education in sub-Saharan Africa, a field in which increased knowledge production and distribution open up opportunities for users, institutions and societies. Against a background of chronic economic uncertainty we examine the influence of major international institutions on the direction of higher education, in particular teacher education. Drawing on relevant literature and our own experience, reflexively, we argue that the tendency, towards free market regulation ideologies, privileges neo-liberal global knowledge discourses, such that they impose on higher education a need to respond across a range of fields.
Keywords: commodification, discourse practices, globalisation, global players, higher education, internationalisation, knowledge economies, marketisation, neo-liberalism, regulation ideologies, shrinking world, sub-Saharan Africa, teacher education
According to both the exponents and critics of globalisation, the major international institutions that govern flows of international finance capital and that are at the centre of globalisation are the World Bank (WB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organisation (WTO), all of which push macro-economic policies that favour international finance capital and the removal of barriers to international trade, thus strengthening and deepening inequalities between the rich and the poor. As international banks come under increasing political pressure to reassess their procedures, their hitherto pivotal role in the process of rampant capital accumulation should also be closely scrutinised as one of the global forces impacting on education in developing nations. Kell (2005:247) has argued that the cluster of political, economic and cultural projects, under the umbrella rhetoric of "globalisation and modernisation", has subjected public education to corporate and market forces, a decentralised industrial relations agenda, and heightened levels of management control through accountability regimes for public sector workers, including teachers.
To advance the main arguments of this paper we raise the following questions: (i) What constitutes meaningful activity in research, and transformation of teaching and learning in the era of globalisation and internationalisation of higher education? (ii) Can technology be manipulated as a neutral tool? (iii) What distinguishes activity from mere functioning as students engage in social networking? (iv) How do we reintroduce our ability to retain reflexivity, our power for liberation and an oppositional discourse and critical pedagogy of hope in teacher education? (v) How do we negate the objecti-fication of the subject embedded in our uncritical acceptance of the utility of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in teacher education? (vi) Is the human being an object of manipulation, adjustable by technical and rational thinking as we reform teacher education to introduce ICTs (Cooper, 2002)?
In this paper, we argue that sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has for too long been pressurised by neo-liberal market economics and government policies into serving their interests before its own. In particular, the provision of higher education for the 'clients', the students, has been implicitly geared to furthering the process of globalisation. To this end, Joshee (2008:36) argues that in education the neoliberal agenda stresses: "global competitiveness, the reduction of the publicly financed costs of education, and of social reproduction in general, the necessity for greater market choice and accountability and the hierarchically conditioned, globally oriented state subjects - i.e. individuals oriented to excel in ever transforming situations of global competition, either as workers, managers or entrepreneurs." Carnoy (2005) has argued that today's massive movement of capital depends on information communication and knowledge in the global markets, and because knowledge is portable it lends itself easily to globalisation. For the developing world, the university is central to the process of knowledge production and dissemination. However, it has adopted a social re-constructivist model in which teacher education is now the sole mandate of universities, including those in South Africa. Unfortunately, there is a shortage of teachers qualified and competent to teach specific subjects: mathematics, sciences and technology education (MSTE), arts and culture, economic management, and languages (Integrated Strategic
Planning for Teacher Education and Development in South Africa [ISPTEDSA], 2011). Responding to this inability of universities to educate and train a sufficient number of teachers, South Africa's Minister of Higher Education, Blade Nzimande, allocated funds to help improve graduate output and foundation programmes to improve the success rates of students from disadvantaged educational backgrounds (Bua-News, 2012). Our argument is that higher education and teacher education as a commodity is implicated in global and regional trade networks (Giddens, 2003). It is therefore essential that we tackle conceptual issues pertaining to globalisation and internationalisation.
Conceptual issues of globalisation and internationalisation
This paper is built around the two key concepts of globalisation and internationa-lisation, for which an upfront understanding of subsequent discussions is crucial. De Wit (2011) argues that both globalisation and internationalisation are complex phenomena with many strands, and the distinction between internationalisation and globalisation although suggestive, cannot be regarded as categorised. They overlap and are intertwined in all kind of ways. Beginning with globalisation, it is an economic phenomenon that has discernible political and social connotations and is intrinsically bound to western cultural imperialism and advanced by an alliance between the world's largest corporations and the most powerful governments (Korten, 2001). This alliance is backed by the power of money and its defining project is to integrate the world's national economies into a single, borderless global economy in which mega-corporations are free to move goods and money anywhere in the worlds that affords an opportunity for profit without governmental interference (Brandenburg & De Wit, 2011).
Singh, Kenway and Apple (2005) conceptualise globalisation as a widely contested concept that has many and varied implications for educational policies, pedagogies, and politics of nation states. They categorise the literature into two sets, namely, "globalisation from above" (Singh et al., 2005:1) and "globalisation from below" (Singh et al., 2005:1). According to these scholars, the former has globalising tendencies, such as internationalisation, marketisation, universalisation, westernisation and deteriorisation, which entrench a top-down perspective. They assert that the top constitutes the top multinational corporations and multi- or supra-national political organisations. The master narrative in this regard is neo-liberal economics, with its calls for state legislated and protected trade and structural adjustment in national economies. "Globalisation from below" (Singh et al., 2005:1), they contend, is sensitive to the unevenness and disjunctions in the practices and consequences of neo-liberal globalism. They point out that those who have interest in "globalisation from below" (Singh et al., 2005:1) are also interested in deteriorisation, flows, mesh-works, speed, time/space reorganisation, virtuality, the fluid, the flexible, and the new.
Arshad-Ayaz (2008) defines globalisation as a phenomenon that subsumes into itself political, economic, social and cultural dynamics of the contemporary world. These dynamics, she asserts, include the post-Cold War uni-polarity marked by the emergence of the United States as the sole political and military super power; the ascendancy of the neo-liberal economic agenda and forces; an increased cultural contact on a global scale facilitated by ICTs, as well as cultural fragmentation manifested in the emergence of local identities and nationalism. Of concern to Singh et al. (2005) are the complex and contradictory experiences of diverse people whose lives are made poorer and marginalised by the trade and investment patterns of economic globalisation, particularly in the developing world or the south. According to Altbach, Reisberg and Rumbley (2009) globalisation is a key reality in the 21st century and has profoundly influenced higher education. Indeed, education is a crucial arena in which globalising processes modulate material and territorial place, space, cultures, identities, and relationships (Singh et al., 2005). Our concern is how higher education in SSA is used to serve the needs of economic globalisation.
Internationalisation, in contrast, is a philosophical ideology that is not economic in genesis but political and social in intent. It is defined as the variety of policies and programmes that universities and governments implement to respond to globalisation (Altbach et al., 2009). It is inherently a left-of-centre political ideology with a heavy emphasis on economic cooperation. It is an ideology that is similarly geared towards a decrease of international barriers but with the aim of the economic betterment of the planet, not the perpetuation of power and privilege in the hands of the western dominated economies we see at work with the forces responsible for globalisation (Brandenburg & De Wit, 2011). Internationalism denounces the dominance of western ideology over non-western societies, which makes it the ideological antithesis of globalisation. Globalisation contains no such humanitarian concerns; it is an economic creed dedicated towards modernisation and capitalism. Therefore, internationalism is the inspiration behind the establishment of many political parties and organisations around the world.
Contextualising teacher education policy in sub-Saharan Africa Arshad-Ayaz (2008) asserts that the major defining educational policies worldwide are the state, market and international agencies such as the World Bank and IMF. She argues that globalisation has had a direct impact on education in the developing countries through finance-driven reforms. The main force behind these reforms is the World Bank, which has made its ideology of globalisation central to its statements on educational policy (Korten, 2001). The higher education and teacher education landscape, particularly in SSA, is complex and varies from one country to another and within each country. As Mamdani (2007:132) states: "there is no part of Africa that is the same as anywhere else because every part has its specificity". However, due to globalisation and the rise of the new economy, we note the "blurring of boundaries among markets, state and higher education" (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004:24) in which teacher education is located. As a contested terrain, teacher education discourse in SSA is dominated by a positivistic paradigm that is implicated in the dictates of neo-liberal economic policies and ideologies germane to the new economy. Countries in SSA are therefore like nations in other regional blocks that have committed themselves to the achievement of UNESCO's Education for All (EFA) goals and the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which include the achievement of completion of primary education by all learners (Universal Primary Education [UPE]) by 2015 (Anamuah-Mensah, Buckler, Moon, Ricketts, Sankale, Wolfenden & Pon-tefract, 2008). For example, UNESCO's ten-year Teacher Training Initiative for sub-Saharan Africa (TTISSA, 2006-2015) advocates a holistic approach to meeting both the quantitative and qualitative challenges associated with teacher development.
Four outputs have been identified: (i) improvement of the status and working conditions of teachers; (ii) improvement of teacher management and administration structures; (iii) the development of appropriate teacher policies; and (iv) the enhancement of quality and coherence of teacher professional development (UNESCO, 2007). The programme was launched in 17 countries in 2006 and would progressively incorporate all 52 SSA countries. Support to the development of teacher policies is a key dimension of TTISSA and addresses the need identified by member states for feasible, evidence-based, costed policies which respond to the current and evolving challenges.
A study by Anamuah-Mensah et al. (2008), on building an effective Open Education Resource (OER) environment for teacher education in SSA, shows that the dire need for qualified teachers in the region is exacerbated by the presence of a high percentage of untrained primary teachers in more than half of SSA. Worse is the negative effect on teacher supply of Human Immunosuppresive Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and the migration of trained teachers to other countries and jobs inside their countries. All these factors play a contributory role in the low levels of pupil achievement and low rates for completion of primary schooling. If SSA is to meet its teacher need, currently estimated to be 4 million, it must adopt innovative and sustainable models of teacher development that include use of new forms of ICTs, such as the TTISSA and the Teacher Education for Sub-Saharan Africa (TESSA) models. While not downplaying the merits of such initiatives, we argue, following Stromquist (2002:63), that this is how "the local reacts to the global by creating specific, if not unique responses" to challenges in teacher education and education in general. Indeed, for the purposes of reciprocation we further argue for the globalisation of local innovations or initiatives from Africa generally and SSA in particular, in order to sustain a fair global alliance and coexistence.
The quality of educational delivery remains a challenge in many of the SSA education systems, leading to high repetition and dropout rates, with many millions of children not completing primary schooling. The repetition rate at the primary level remains the highest among all regions of the world, even though it decreased from 17.4% to 13.1% between 1999 and 2006. The primary cohort completion rate of 67% in SSA for the school year ending 2005 is still very low (UNESCO, 2008). The demographic and practical realities facing teacher supply and demand accentuates the need for more qualified teachers, especially in MSTE, and local languages. The pupil enrolment has engendered pupil-teacher ratios in SSA increasing from 41:1 to 45:1 since 1999, and may increase to 58:1 if all 35 million primary-age children not in school are enrolled (UNESCO, 2009). The situation is more serious in some countries in conflict or post-conflict positions. In Mozambique and Rwanda, for example, it is 67:1 and 66:1, respectively (UNESCO, 2009), and in Congo 83:1 (Anamuah-Mensah et al., 2008).
Globalisation and internationalisation: The underpinning thoughts on higher education In the context of the six research questions, we turn to a discussion of globalisation and internationalisation. De Wit (2011) argues that the international dimension of higher education has become more central on the agenda of international organisations and national governments, institutions of higher education and their representative bodies, student organisations and accreditation agencies. According to Arshad-Ayaz (2008), the neoliberal economic rationality of globalisation has framed the restructuring of education in such a manner that its function has changed from production of knowledge, to production of management of wealth (economic management). In this regard, Banya (2008) points out that globalisation has shifted the values of higher education in SSA towards a capitalist political economy. He reasons that the common language of globalisation emphasises concepts such as "outputs" (Banya, 2008:231), "outcomes" (Banya, 2008:231), quality, accountability, value for money, efficiency, and managers. He argues further that globalisation has at least four far-reaching implications for higher education in SSA: (i) the constriction of monies available for discretionary activities; (ii) the growing importance of technoscience and fields closely involved with markets, particularly international markets; (iii) the tightening relationship between multinational corporations and state agencies concerned with product development and innovation; and (iv) the increased focus of multinationals on global intellectual property rights. The implication, according to Banya (2008), is that higher education has shifted more to supporting an economy that is knowledge-intensive at a global level.
Chinnammai (2005) points out, through globalisation of higher education and in particular teacher education, knowledge transfer from the western countries into developing countries is intended to improve the skills and capabilities of the people receiving it, but may also shape the behaviour, outlooks and values of the recipients. Thus, a key feature of globalisation is the permeability of borders not only for goods, services and capital, but also for knowledge, popular culture and people. In this global era, teacher education reform initiatives such as TESSA and TTISSA can be seen as "global practices that produce systems of inclusion and exclusion" (Popkewitz, 2000:158).
Marketisation and commoditisation of higher education
In examining the marketisation of higher education the researchers look at its impact on the restructuring of higher education, of which teacher education is a component, in order to suit the needs of an economic growth project being pushed by a neo-liberal economic agenda. This includes the dictates of international finance capital for new markets, skilled personnel and cheap labour. These global imperatives have a deleterious impact on a few areas such as curriculum reform, teaching and learning, research and renewal in the SSA academy. For example, in much of SSA higher education, research has been accorded priority over teaching, with traditional rewards for faculties engaged in research for individual accomplishment (Highfield & Lawton, 2010). Guemide and Mehdani (2010) reason that the growth of research funding and private higher education has been faster than that of public funding in some areas, although higher education is still largely funded by the public purse. When government funding supports research, it understandably targets projects that have a bearing on national development (Chinnammai, 2005). An associated effect also linked to globalisation is a research presence that tends to be more applied than theoretical and in some cases benefits international and local capital, directly or indirectly.
Such imperatives have led to the "commodification, consumerism and marketi-sation" (Brown, 2005:174) of teacher education germane to a neo-liberal global agenda in higher education. In the context of commodification of education, democracy within higher education is becoming increasingly replaced by the concept of service provision, with the consequence that it is market mechanisms rather than democratic structures that characterise the steering of universities (Garret, 2000). For the training of teachers, the lack of a democratic agenda and values education impacts negatively on schooling in general. This fails to reflect the complex role of education, both in societal and individual terms (Giroux, 2008). Our agendas for access, equity and transformation in the academy are being thwarted by efforts to ensure that the academy aligns its vision and mission to a global economic agenda (Errante, 2008). Thus, we see privatisation of higher education making inroads into the academy, as we are all now concerned with cost units and viability of programmes through their exchange value on the market (Giroux, 2008). There is a threat to education and other humanities and social sciences in particular, because we fail to justify the utilitarian value of education and teacher education in particular. We need to understand that the very discourse of globalisation and internationalisation in higher education is always produced in connection with power relations (Fischer, 2009) which impact on the epistemologies and philosophies we adopt in teacher education. We further believe that due to greater focus on the larger picture, the processes of globalisation and interna-tionalisation, if not properly managed, can gloss over some valuable needs unique to a particular nation or region.
Globalisation and internationalisation of higher education
As can be deduced from our postulation of the nature of globalisation, theoretically, the researchers are informed by critical theory and the work of postcolonial theorists such as Fanon (1963) and Bhabha (1994). Critical theory enables a "disciplined questioning of the ways in which power works through the discursive practices of performances" (Popkewitz & Brennan, 1998:287), including those ofhigher education, with SSA at the receiving end of its vicissitudes as it impacts on the daily lives of those who work and live in the academy and civil society (Mills, 2002). As a theoretical framework, critical theory, "consistently maintains a dialectical view of society, claiming that social phenomena must always be viewed in their historical perspectives" (Mills, 2002:24). Its power, as espoused by the Frankfurt School of Thought, lies in its articulation of "societal conditions [being] historically created and heavily influenced by asymmetries of power and special interests, and [their being] made subjects of social change" (Alvessono & Skoldberg, 2009:145).
In trying to conceptually link globalisation and teacher education, we need to understand the dialectical relationship between the state, international capital, and the production and distribution of knowledge in a global economy. In the SSA academy it is easier for us to see how the dimensions of globalisation impact on the provision and trajectory of higher education, especially with the advent of ICTs in blended modes of teaching and learning. Hatch & Cunliffe (2006) and Badat (2010) argue that technology is an integral part of the discourse of power and social control and consequently the destruction of human social bonds. They argue that post-industrial capitalism, and in particular its associated technology, has shifted social values from those of truth and justice to efficiency, that is, attaining optimal performance by minimising the amount of energy expended to achieve maximum output. Korten (2001) argues that because of the imperative to replicate money, the system treats people as a source of inefficiency. He points out that the first industrial revolution reduced dependence on human muscle and now the information revolution is reducing dependence on our eyes, ears, and brains. The consequence of this, according to Korten (2001), is that the redundant now end up as victims of starvation and violence, homeless beggars, welfare recipients, or residents of refugee camps. Finally, he believes that continuing on our present course will almost certainly lead to accelerating social and environmental disintegration. Thus, social control is exercised when decisions about the value of a person, department or institution are based primarily on their ability to contribute to the efficiency of the system. For Guemide & Mehdani (2010), the application of economic standards as benchmarks has led to an international tendency to over-emphasise the practical, technical value of higher education. Such a tendency, they argue, causes tensions between the more profitable, applied subjects of science and technology, and those of basic theoretical enquiry, particularly in the humanities.
Ohmae (2005) argues that technology has linked societies with global information and it makes it possible for capital to shift instantly across borders. It has also allowed managers to become more flexible and respond more quickly to consumer preferences.
He goes on to say that technological change has sped up the internationalisation of production and the dispersion of manufacturing to newly industrialised countries, increased capital mobility, and cheaper transnational communications. Furthermore, producers can supply markets with new products, and process lifetimes have shortened. Conversely, as costs of research and development (R&D) have risen, firms have been forced to expand internationally, cross-border capital flows have increased, and markets have been liberalised. Industrialisation has raised living standards, and people have become better educated. With these structural changes, competition has intensified among states and firms for world market share. However, Wade (2002) argues that information and communication technologies are being oversold as a solution to higher efficiency of corporate and public organisations and to stronger responsiveness of government to citizen-customers. Wade (2002) posits that efforts to bridge the digital divide may cause developing countries to depend on the west. Less developed countries need more representation in the standard-setting bodies. Additionally, current attempts do not address issues of sustainability, such as computer servicing and training.
Wade (2002) addresses several common beliefs regarding information and communication technologies. First, the digital divide is a major unequalizing force in the world economy. Second, supplying more information and communication technologies to developing countries will solve the unequalization. Third, information and communication technologies will overcome infrastructural obstacles of developing countries. Fourth, normal cost/benefit analysis cannot be applied to information and communication technologies. Fifth, the high failure rate of information and communication technologies projects is a reflection of the need for more training. Wade (2002) disagrees with these beliefs, positing that the digital divide is actually a reflection of the income division. He also disagrees that the spread of computers will cause efficiency gains in firms and public administrations, or lower transaction costs. Wade (2002) believes that organisation inefficiencies will override potential benefits. Furthermore, the addition of ICTs in developing countries that do not have the capacity to maintain them will create a new "e-dependence" Wade (2002:444) on developed countries. Developing countries receive incentives from the World Bank to introduce new information and communication technologies, but this then ties them to open-ended commitments to suppliers for continued support. According to Wade (2002), less developed countries are disadvantaged by lack of income, skills, infrastructure, and in terms of standards and rules that are part of the international system. As a result of this, western suppliers have a disproportionate advantage.
The dimensions of globalisation and their impact on higher education Economic globalisation and higher education
Apple, Kenway and Singh (2005:3) have argued that neo-liberal "economics calls for state legislated and protected trade, structural adjustment in national economies" and the liberalisation of trade. As noted by Woods (2000) and Errante (2008:5), globa- lisation engenders gross inequalities within and among states and erodes the capacity of traditional multilateral institutions such as the WB, the IMF and the WTO to manage new threats brought about by it. As academics, we need to understand that the neo-liberal discourse of economic development is framed by "traditional economic theory, maximising behaviour in market settings, price theory, and the so-called allocative efficiency" (Caporaso & Levine, 1992:127), human resource development, costings, and private funding, all of which point to the dominant rationale for higher education being economic.
Political globalisation and higher education
We have an obligation to engage with the discourse about globalisation as a political production and its impact on higher education in terms of teaching, learning, research and academic citizenship. We are now witnessing a "restructuring" (Steans, 2000:455) and a re-ordering of the relationships between nations and "the increasing influence of transnational corporations, the complex global division of labour, and the intimate relationship between debt, development and environmental degradation, which are integral parts of the ongoing interconnectedness characteristic of globalisation" (Steans, 2000:455). For example, Mills (2002:25) argues that SSA's opportunities lie in international markets, even though these are far more competitive than local ones. Higher education is increasingly pressured by government to meet market standards set in international forums and bilateral or multi-lateral organisations such as UNESCO, thus restricting the scope and extent of their activity (Chinnammai, 2005:2). As Orr (1999:166) aptly states, "graduates of tomorrow will be trained above all, to keep the wheels of the global economy and international capital turning".
As governments require more compliance and productivity from higher education, these concerns have given rise to the role of external consultants to assist academics and university managers in change management and restructuring of the academy so that we are viable during this era of shrinking financial resources (Brown, 2005). There is great concern in the academy that globalisation is a process that surpasses national and local legislative and regulatory mechanisms, and presents new challenges in the regulation and provision of higher education as the latter is increasingly becoming an international enterprise (Chinnammai, 2005). This is the source of a corporatist style of management and the development of the entrepreneurial university with emphasis on quality education, quality assurance systems, and different modes of accountability models that are at the heart of performance appraisal in higher education. In teacher education we begin to see the adoption of models of initial professional education of teachers (IPET) and continuous professional development (CPD) that have been developed outside the continent being imported under the guise of universal knowledge. With reference to the key questions, we further argue that the benefits of concentrating value-adding activities in a few countries include gaining economies of scale and leveraging the special skills or strengths of particular countries.
Cultural globalisation and higher education
Pieterse (2004:25) has asked whether cultures around the world are eternally different, converging or creating new "hybrid" forms out of the unique combination of global and local ones. The students in particular are shaped into "global citizens" (Chinna-mmai, 2005:1), reflecting the effect of globalisation on culture and bringing about a new form of cultural imperialism. Guemide and Mehdani (2010) have argued that cultural imperialism is a threat to traditional cultures because the process of modernisation changes societies. For Bhabha (1994:251), "the post-colonial perspective forces us to rethink the profound limitations of a consensual and collusive liberal sense of culture community. It insists that cultural and political identity is constructed through a process of alterity." Education and teacher education in particular is part of this sphere. For us, this process is further compounded by unclear notions of learner-centred approaches to teaching and learning that are brought about by prepackaged curricula through the use of re-usable learning objects or OERs. The introduction of OERs, while it is a move in the right direction in terms of reducing costs to educational materials, is also justified by universities and teacher education programmes nationwide for achieving economies of scale.
Globalisation and technological advancements are delivering increasing access to the world and subsequently subjects should reflect this global outlook. Rifkin, in The Age of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism where All of Life is a Paid-for Experience (2000:218), poses the question differently: "While property dealt with the narrow material question of what is mine and thine, access deals with the broader cultural question of who controls lived experience itself. As such, for Lyotard (1984), increasingly, the central question is becoming who will have access in this new postmodern world. The question for us is how should SSA higher education in this era of globalisation respond to these imperatives? We proffer a position that argues for the re-contextualisation of educational models and reforms such as OERs. As far as OERs in teacher education are concerned our suggestion is that African institutions should play a critical role in the production, storage and dissemination of such materials for the use by students and teachers. Emphasis should definitely be on mathematics, science, language and technology.
Social Globalisation and higher education
Social life facets are affected by globalisation, which has increased interconnectedness among the world's populations, whether economically, politically, socially or culturally (Guemide & Mehdani, 2010). However, Carnoy (2005) argues that globalisation is changing the very fundamentals of human relations and social life. If higher education is to assist the poor in SSA gain access to knowledge and development then it should contribute to these kinds of capital. In South Africa, social inequalities persist and in the past they were embedded and reflected in all spheres of life, including higher education, as a systematic exclusion of Blacks and women under colonialism and apartheid. The social exclusion of some categories of people continues (HansPeter & Schumann, 1997) but we should learn from critical theorists such as Foucault and begin to see multiple power relations embedded in globalisation and the inter-nationalisation of higher education in SSA. For the researchers, what is important is the construction of an African organic intellectual identity in the era of globalisation and how race, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and power relations are implicated in the process (Gramsci, 1977:35).
How do African intellectuals transcend the two-tiered racialised institutional structure prevalent in most SSA universities and how do we learn from the wider Africa on this point? Mamdani (2007) states that the African intellectual is central to the process of political, cultural and academic identity formation through decolonisation and deracialisation of civic democracy, at the individual, institutional and processual level, the latter being the hardest and the slowest of all. These intellectuals can push the decolonisation and democratisation of civic democracy, through a combination of a change in institutional power, deracialised institutions and intellectual freedom. They require fruitful, intellectual and democratic debates which are key to advancing the frontiers of knowledge in SSA. Such an approach is a responsive resource that strikes into the future. Mamdani (2007:132) alludes to this project being an intellectual rebirth, a reawakening of the mind and a change in consciousness. It calls for a rethinking and rewriting of history, thereby creating a sense of self-worth and a renewed sense of agency.
These issues need to be inserted into discourse practices of teacher education and education in general. The starting point is the school curriculum, to be followed by the re-writing of school textbooks. The way we train teachers is also essential in the development of practitioners who will eventually mould the minds of our children. We are therefore arguing for the education of a teacher who will be committed as a professional and reflective practitioner, grounded in subject matter and pedagogical content knowledge. Such a teacher should also be exposed to critical pedagogies and educational epistemologies that are based on an oppositional discourse that is not an apologia for a positivistic stance in teacher education.
The arguments in this paper focused on aspects of globalisation and internationa-lisation of higher education in SSA, arguing that free market regulation ideologies privilege neo-liberal global knowledge economies that impose on higher education institutions their curricula, pedagogies, research goals, discourses, funding practices, performance-related budgets and orientations. We pointed out that the different processes of globalisation and internationalisation reflect and result from a political tendency to perceive the self-regulation of the market as a universal instrument to reach the triad of innovation, economic progress and competitiveness of societies. We make the point that the challenges brought about by globalisation and interna- tionalisation of higher education will require interdisciplinary groups to solve them through gathering and sharing of knowledge across disciplines, institutions and other institutions on a global scale. We have to be guided by our socio-economic context for us to be able to expose our students to an engaging learning environment in which they can eventually be critical workers located in the needs of the SSA, yet able to understand hermeneutically what globalisation means in terms of its close interests with international capital. We need to lead the struggles against the processes in which globalisation through culture, capital, technology and the media affects the daily lives of knowing people in SSA. This can only be possible if we decentre the subject so that we collectively subvert how globalisation directs the conscience of the knowing subject in SSA and the academy.
We agree with critical theorists that we have to reconstruct the subject through reimagining and reworking education to become responsive by constructing transformative policies, pedagogies and politics that enable intergenerational engagements with changing global/national imperatives (Singh et al., 2005:114). In this way, the curriculum is orientated around transformative engagements through transformative education that enables public and private institutions, as well as citizens, to engage in a whole-of-society transformation, in continuity with values of community wellbeing enacted through global/national cultural flows of risks, power, knowledge, capital, people, technology and information. In the process we free the subject from power that subdues and subjects and the prevailing power relations that fuel globalisation of higher education. Finally, as the global system itself comes under strain, the need for the developing world to re-examine the relationship between higher education, in particular teacher education, in sub-Saharan Africa and the west, becomes more, not less, urgent.
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There was a birder at the park this morning. I spotted him as Lucy and I rounded the path. He was walking a bike. He occasionally stopped and lifted his binoculars and peered into a tree. He was wearing bike shorts and a helmet and was sporting large rubber band-like straps below his kneecaps. "Red tail?" I asked, sauntering past, a bird disappearing over the trees. "Kestrel," he corrected. I moved on. He lingered. Lucy darted ahead. There is an unmatched quality to a Sunday early morning.
* * *
I returned two books to shelves this week, actually, to be precise, one book to the shelf, one to the library. I have tried to read Angle of Repose Wallace Stenger's 1971 Pulitzer-winning novel three times. I advanced almost two hundred pages this go 'round (out of 600) but decided to retrace my steps. It lacked a certain deeper context. Or rather, it–this context–escaped me. A book has to appeal on multiple levels. Angle of Repose seemed lacking in dimension. No doubt my problem, not the book's. The other book, The Second Book of Tao, was poor timing. Some books, like some foods, require the necessary appetite. Bailing on a book no longer troubles me.
The last novel I devoured was the second book in the six book series, My Struggle, by Karl Ove Knausgaard. Like many other readers of this series (3000 pages!), I cannot get enough, but cannot explain exactly why. Zadie Smith says she needs his books "like crack." James Woods, writing in The New Yorker, says, [Knausgaard] wants us to inhabit the ordinariness of life, which is sometimes visionary…, sometimes banal…and sometimes momentous…but all of it perforce ordinary because it happens in the course of a life, and happens, in different forms, to everyone. He notices everything—too much, no doubt—but often lingers beautifully." It feels time to get book three. I have the appetite.
* * *
I cleaned out dad's room the day after he died. All of his belongings packed into three grocery-store banana boxes and four trash bags. I took the bags of clothes to Good Will. The boxes remain in the back of my truck. Dad never read Thoreau, but he understood living simply. The sage lives as long as he should, not as long as he can, says Montaigne. Dad, unknowingly, was a great philosopher.
* * *
I return from my morning walk with Lucy and declare to Carole that I don't have a spiritual bone in my body. This is a revelation after years of fruitlessly attempting to cultivate a phantom desire, as if living up to a responsibility. "Do you mean religious bone in your body?" she asked. "No, I know I don't have that," I say. She nods and says it's the same with her. We leave it at that. Know thyself, counseled the Greeks.


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Nancy Lindborg is USAID's Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance.
The drought gripping the Horn of Africa has focused all of us on the imperative of building resilience. We know we can't prevent drought, but we can use improved and smarter programs to create greater resilience and improve food security. We can make progress that ensures the next time a drought hits the Horn, it won't push 13.4 million people — unimaginably more than New York City and Los Angeles combined — into crisis.
So what is resilience exactly, and what are the key methods for success? In pursuit of that answer, USAID convened last week, in partnership with IFPRI and our many partners, a two day workshop on "Enhancing Resilience in the Horn of Africa: An Evidence Workshop on Strategies for Success." Through President Obama's Feed the Future initiative, the U.S. government now has a powerful global hunger and food security initiative that connects its enduring commitment to humanitarian assistance with increased investments in agriculture and nutrition and sound policy. This workshop was designed to inform our programs with the our best lessons and strategies for tackling chronic food insecurity.
"Resilience" is quite literally the ability to jump back; to return to original form. It has become a vivid one-word way to capture the importance of providing emergency assistance in a way that helps families and communities both withstand shocks and, as importantly, become more stable and food secure. While there is not a common accepted definition of resilience, building resilience generally involves reducing the likelihood and severity of crises; building capacity to buffer or absorb shocks; creating and enhancing communities' or families' ability to respond; and reducing the impact of crises.
The workshop underscored how much we have already learned from previous drought and famines. In Ethiopia in 2002-2003, drought left 14 million people in need of emergency aid – more than those currently in need throughout the entire Horn region today. Out of that tragedy grew policies, programs, and approaches that have made a lasting impact. In fact, some 7.5 million fewer people in Ethiopia are not part of the emergency caseload because of the work collectively done since the last drought.
At USAID, we are committed to connecting more effectively our humanitarian and development efforts through joint planning cells that develop coherent programs to do more than meet immediate needs. Working with our UN and NGO partners, USAID has included in our emergency assistance a focus on building community infrastructure to harvest rainwater and improve irrigation, improving livelihoods for women, and repairing degraded landscapes for better grazing and agricultural production. We worked with the World Bank, other donors and the Ethiopian Government to use our food assistance to build productive safety nets that help families move from crisis toward greater food security. We are introducing improved and more nutritious food products in partnerships with USDA and the private sector. And we have become one of the global leaders in use of local and regional procurement of food aid in a way that stimulates local production. Programs such as the Productive Safety Net Program in Ethiopia and a program in Kenya connecting livestock farmers to markets have helped families and communities cope with shock and increase their incomes.
The drought and famine in the Horn remains the world's worst humanitarian crisis and continues to command our attention and involvement, but it also has given the global community an opportunity to change the way we do things.
The workshop reinforced that we have a critical moment of alignment: heads of state, regional institutions, UN agencies, non-governmental organizations and the private sector have all converged in their understanding that resilience is critical as we seek to reduce humanitarian suffering and increase the ability of families to survive the inevitable shocks of drought, floods and other natural disasters. We have the tools to address the challenges ahead, but it is clear that none of us can succeed alone. The workshop closed with a shared vision of change that we believe will bring a more hopeful future.


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Coal-export schemes ignite unusual opposition, from Wyoming to India
On India's sweltering Western coast, Bharat Patel heads a group of traditional fishermen called Machimar Adhikar Sangharsh Samiti, which loosely translates as the Association for the Struggle for Fishworkers' Rights.
Meanwhile, up in the arid breaks of southeast Montana, Mark Fix wants to preserve the rural character of his 9,700-acre ranch along the Tongue River, where a couple hundred head of cattle share territory with wildlife ranging from great blue herons to beaver and prairie dogs.
Toss in grassroots environmental groups in India and China, some big worldwide green groups, plus more than 300 doctors in Oregon and Washington, local governments in towns like Mosier, Ore., and Edmonds, Wash., Sandpoint, Idaho, and Helena, Mont., numerous Northwest tribes, and the Chamber of Commerce in Burlington, Wash., a small town proud of its annual Berry Dairy Days festival.
What do these disparate parties have in common? They've all recently become allies in an environmental battle in the Western U.S. All are concerned that some of the world's biggest coal and railroad companies want to begin moving huge amounts of that fossil fuel from our country's mother lode -- the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming -- on rail lines across the Northwest to new port facilities, where it would be shipped to voracious power plants in Asian countries, mostly China and India. This scheme would cause pollution, noise and congestion everywhere along the rail line, and seriously worsen climate change, among other impacts.
"At both ends, local communities are getting trampled," says Justin Guay, a Sierra Club staffer based in Washington, D.C., who spends part of his time in India working with Bharat Patel's group.
On the Powder River Basin end, mining companies like Peabody and Arch have shipped coal by rail for decades, mostly eastward to U.S. power plants. But stricter U.S. regulations on coal combustion -- which releases toxic mercury, other heavy metals, sulfur compounds and carbon dioxide, a primary cause of climate change -- and the use of hydrofracturing to develop new sources have made natural gas a cheaper, better fuel for domestic power plants. That's why coal companies want to sell to Asia, where India and China are on a coal-fired power-plant building binge.
The thousands of fishermen in Patel's group oppose the construction of two gigantic coal plants on India's coast -- each at least 4,000 megawatts, roughly eight times larger than the average U.S. coal plant. They say that the coal plants are blocking their access to the shore and marketplaces, spreading pollution and discharging hot water that harms fish habitat. India already imports coal from places like Indonesia and Australia, and many in the industry think that the Powder River Basin coal, thanks to cheap federal leases and easy-to-access veins, will be competitively priced even after it's hauled all the way to Asia. Patel says that "policy makers are too focused on developing industries ... at the cost of degradation of the coastal environment," and calls for "new solutions to ... climate change."
In between the Powder River Basin and Asia, the coal must pass through many cities in mile-and-a-half-long trains, up to 60 per day, not counting the return traffic. Six new ports are proposed in Washington and Oregon to handle as much as 157 million tons of coal per year (roughly twice as much cargo as the states' existing ports handle). The Whatcom Docs, a group of more than 150 doctors near one of the proposed Washington ports, are "deeply concerned about the health and safety impacts," because coal dust and diesel fumes lodge in people's lungs, causing asthma, cancer and other illnesses, while long trains impede emergency vehicles trying to cross the tracks. Rancher Fix frames it more bluntly: "It's corporate greed -- making a buck on whoever's back you have to."
Of course, there would be benefits beyond electricity for Asia -- profits for investors and CEOs gorging at the trough, plus several thousand jobs in mining and construction (the companies would spend more than $2 billion on the ports alone), and taxes on the operations. But there would also be costs: In the communities split by the rail traffic, for instance, constructing a single overpass would require many millions of dollars –– costs that railroads typically outsource to the communities.
One portion of the scheme, the Tongue River Railroad -- a proposed 80-mile-long, half-billion-dollar spur to access an incredible 1.3 billion tons of undeveloped coal in Montana's Otter Creek area -- would force its way across Fix's ranch, condemning a three-mile-long path for the tracks, carving through bluffs, separating much of the ranch from the river, and destroying his peace and quiet. That's why Fix -- a third-generation rancher who worked as an engineer inspecting nuclear-missile silos before he settled beside the river in 1991 -- has challenged the Tongue River Railroad proposals, together with a ranchers' group he belongs to, the Northern Plains Resource Council.
The ranchers won a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling last December that says the federal Surface Transportation Board must do a new environmental impact statement; previous EISes that approved segments of the Tongue River Railroad are outdated. On June 18, that agency, which tends to be pro-industry, began the EIS process. Other EISes will be done on the proposed ports by a stew of federal, state and local agencies, including the pro-industry Army Corps of Engineers.
The opponents want thorough evaluations that weigh all the impacts, with public hearings around the Northwest that would give time to speakers like Kimberly Larson, a staffer for Climate Solutions, a Washington group that advocates for wind and solar power. "The coal companies need a new market for their drug," she says, "just like we saw with tobacco companies," which emphasized overseas sales when health warnings and taxes eroded their U.S. customer base. Industry, however, prefers narrow evaluations -- a local hearing that only weighs the construction of a new dock, for instance. And industry is optimistic: In the last few weeks, a couple of companies leased additional Powder River Basin deposits -- with their eyes fixed on Asia.


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Wolf Blitzer delivers the most important breaking news and political, international, and national security stories of the day. Tune to The Situation Room weekdays 5-7pm ET on CNN.
CNN's Brian Todd compares Zimmerman trial jurors' takes on the case.
RELATED STORY: Justice system 'didn't work for us,' Trayvon Martin's father says
Last Saturday, shortly before the verdict was handed down in the George Zimmerman trial, Frank Taaffe, Zimmerman's neighbor and friend claimed (on live TV during Harris Faulkner's program featuring Judge Alex and Mercedes Colwin on Fox news) that he had information that one juror (of the six) was holding out and stopping the acquittal of Mr Zimmerman. Juror B37 interview confirms this exact scenario. Please investigate how Mr Taaffe got his information to assure the integrity of the jury sequestration process
But they all seem to came down with the same verdict. I don't think for one second if even one black juror was selected, it would have been different conversations in the decision room. President Obama did a great job speaking for blacks, the history and the context which discussions need to be had. We can never move forward with everybody being treated equally until we honestly and openly discuss our biases, prejudice and unfair treatments. Blacks are not to be chasing whites always trying to be include, no, because we are no lesser human being. But it has to be a mutual reaching out and respect. Blacks have to ultimately realize, no matter how bad we have been treated and will be.....We have to take ownership for our communities and ensure that our environments and kids are successful.....as well as other races.
yes the jurors acct,differ because they very dishonest,thank you for understanding the President's speech.its only the racist like Tapper & the fat Crowley who dont get it
Mr.Blitzer, Racism,what can you expect when even some of the white congressman show subtle racism toward our president. They may not say: they are racist, but their actions toward the president or toward some bills that he signs or passes: Actions speak louder then words. They'll say: "We are going to overturn Obama Care during the next session", just the way they say it shows prejudice and racism. I wonder what some of these white congressman say about their president when they are eating dinner at home with his children and wife. If walls could talk: what would they say.
Thank God the other jurors are weighing in, that first juror just made me sick. She sounded like that sicko Elizabeth who ever from the View. The PA's should have removed themselves from the case for conflict of interest, if they had found found Juror's that would have found Zimmerman guilty, that wouldn't have reflected well on their own police department, for letting him go at first. PA's in general don't like to tick off the police, in a way, they work together. The cops bring them in and the PA builds a case. This particular case was lost with jury selection and the first juror that came out shown every aspect of being a FOX News view and probably a fan of the Elizabeth I mentioned earlier. the investigation of the murder was so shoddy, it's going to be hard for the Justice Department to investigate. We're their photo's of the imprints in the grass, depressions etc. Oh it was raining, was there any attempt to tent off the murder scene. The PA's basically took the story Zimmerman spewed without really investigating. What we do know is Zimmerman is a liar and coward. He began dreaming about having a gun and the power to end a life, long before he got the gun. He explored many scenarios if he did shoot some one, how to get away with it and as result manufactured the story we all have been fed to this point. By the way upon veiwing a better picture of the soft drink that Trayvon was drinking, I realized it was one of my own favorites, it was an Arizona Watermelon Juice. Every time I drink one from now on I'll be thinking of Trayvon just sixteen years, 28 days old being shot by some lying coward.
It worked,just not the way he wanted it.If his boy would have been taught son manners,disipline and respect for other people he would still be alive today.What kind of police record did he have.Was he a druggie?Jim Thomas Phx.Az..
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