We should modernize how we approach testing in our public schools and colleges. Think about flight simulators. When U.S. Navy instructors train a new pilot they would never dream of giving her the keys to a $300 million fighter jet if she gets a passing score on a bubble (multiple choice)...
Today's LA Times carries a major expose on President Reagan's so-called Star Wars program, which I first investigated nearly 30 years ago. The paper's conclusion: most of the $10 billion spent to date has been wasted. That is exactly what the experts I profiled predicted back in 1986. Imagine what we...
Some great news to report about something we've been working on for months. Today, we received the official word that it is okay to announce that our Center for Media Change, Inc. project, ReelChanges, has just won a highly-coveted Public Media Innovation grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in...
And while I am it there is another thing that really bothers me about the current federal government bailout of the banking sector. Financial services firms such as Citigroup are failing because their business model does not work. Now, who would have ever guessed that a business model based on charging...
I bet I am not the only person cheering this week at the news that the nation's largest credit card company, Citibank, may soon go broke and shut down. I closed all my Citibank accounts a few months ago (I had several) after a company representative lied to me, flat...
The scariest thing about the current global economic crisis is the look of uncertainty and sometimes even panic in the eyes of many of those who are supposed to fix the problem. They clearly don't have much of a clue. So, how could we solve the credit crunch? Really, what...
I've been thinking a lot about Junk Media lately. I even thought I might have coined the term until I learned that Ed R. Taylor, among others perhaps, got there first. Turns out there is even a JunkMedia website which, paradoxically, is the exact opposite of its moniker's connotation. Maybe that's...
Earlier this month, County Supervisor Jim Beall and I sent written invitations to the leadership of every public agency in our County, including cities, school districts and special districts inviting them to designate a representative to attend the initial organizing meeting of the Santa Clara County Health Benefits Coalition, the...