THE ENTERPRISE—WHAT NEXT PART II—INSIGHTS FROM OTHERS
SEE MY LATEST ON-LINE POSTS AT THEDAILYJOURNALIST.COM, AND SPECIFICALLY AT THIS LINK: http://thedailyjournalist.com/?s=John+Mariotti&x=0&y=0
TheDailyJournalist.com was founded by an Ohio State grad, Jaime Ortega a few short years ago. He has an extensive network of contributors, and I decided to add some of my writing to his site. Go see it (not just my pieces, but you are welcome to read them too), but the broad range of topics, writers, and material. In an era when things are evolving at breakout speed, when global reach is both easy and mandatory, and when perspectives from multiple generations matter so much, these sites will become increasingly valuable resources.
FOR THOSE WHO CARE ABOUT WHAT CONSUMERS ARE THINKING AND DOING, HERE’S THE LINK FOR YOU http://www.consumersnapshot.com
My friends and colleagues at Big Insight/Prosper Group still produce some of the most accurate and insightful material available. Their network of about 8000 consumers surveyed every month gives them an accuracy (very low margin of error—like 1%) that is seldom seen in surveys that make headlines—with 4-5% margin of error. Check it out and click on some other links on the site. You will be impressed. If you want to speak with them about becoming a “subscriber,” and get the ability to sort, slice, dissect and analyze the data they gather, and most of all have them put what you want into one of their “Insight Centers” on a regular basis, let me know and I’ll connect you to the right person(s). This is as close as you can come to actually predicting the future. http://www.consumersnapshot.com
DO YOU HAVE ENOUGH THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT?
The prospect of Hillary Clinton in the White House is surpassed only by the threat of the ultimate kind of attack—not a cyberattack, which is very, very bad—but an attack with an EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse) device, which literally destroys (permanently) all unprotected electronics of any kind in the area of the attack. These were discovered as a by-product of nuclear testing (which creates big EMPs) and they also can occur as a result of extreme sunspot activity—of which there is about a 10% chance of occurring in the next decade. Nothing electrical or electronic will work at all: the Power Grid, the Internet, GPS systems, ATMs, and satellites, and every form of communications, and electronics in cars, computers, homes, businesses, utilities—all of it—is wiped out by a powerful EMP. Even toilets and drinking water probably won’t work because the water companies pumps would be useless.
It’s not easy to mount such an attack. It takes a lot of power, but no more than a rather smallish nuke, detonated at altitude, over an important city. Nor is it wise to attack with these if you want to occupy the attacked areas, since an EMP totally and permanently cripples all electronics in the target area, rendering it all useless—and the occupants desperate. The saddest thing is that the US Congress has known for several years that for an investment of between $2-5 billion, the critical parts of the Power Grid and other systems in the USA can be “hardened.” That means surrounded by a Faraday Cage (a technical name for a specially designed metal mesh box). The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy calls it a “real and present danger.”
WHY ISN’T ANYTHING BEING DONE TO PROTECT OUR COUNTRY FROM EMPs?
Because we are worried about which gender uses which bathroom? Because our leaders are more concerned about Middle Eastern refugees than about 325 million Americans? I don’t know. Someone has their head up their … well a “very dark place.” To give some credit, the Obama administration has taken a few baby steps to protect some agin satellites and high voltage transformers—but nothing else except commission more studies about what to do. Duh? This is one where you can write, call or email your Congressional Representatives and Senators and push them for bi-partisan action. Do it now.
DUMBING DOWN OF AMERICAN EDUCATION AND EDUCATORS
The State Board of Education in OH—my home state—recently lowered scores needed to meet state standards on two high-school math tests. Why? Because they were “too tough,” particularly for poor, disadvantaged students. I didn’t know being poor meant the human brain didn’t work right. Perhaps its more about motivation than education? In recent years, major big name colleges were guilty of “grade inflation,” giving students higher grades to avoid the ire of parents and donors because some people didn’t get all A’s and B’s. The best one yet was when a group of students at Oberlin College (here in OH again) want to have all grades below C eliminated, so they can spend less time studying and more time demonstrating about social issues.
LIBERAL CONTROL OF ACADEMIA AND THE MEDIA IS “OUT OF CONTROL”
After decades of increasingly liberal faculty and administrators in schools at all levels, the insanity is growing. Poor performing teachers are protected by lax tenure rules and aggressive teacher’s unions. Meanwhile, teacher in inner cities are in danger of personal injuries or worse from students that they are prevented from disciplining—or sending off the detention—at the local jail. WSJ wrier Jason Riley was recently “Disinvited” from a campus speaking event. Read about this in his own words. He closes this article with these words: “We’ve reached the point where conservatives must have their campus speakers pre approved by left-wing pressure groups. If progressives aren’t already in control of academia, they’re pretty close.”
Download I Was Disinvited on Campus - WSJ
THE BRILLIANT THOMAS SOWELL ALSO WEIGHS IN “Young graduates need to experience the world off campus”
I encourage you to read these .pdf files that are the words of brilliant (and coincidentally, black men) commenting on how far off base our academic institutions and leadership has gone. Depending on the report you read, 75 to 90% of the people in academia are “liberal,” and many of them are “far left leaning” because they are protected by their tenure and their institutions. They are poisoning the minds of students across America with a terribly slanted perspective of what’s right and wrong in our society, our social systems, our government and our private sector. One of Sowell’s comments in the article posted below was, “Two themes seem to dominate commencement speeches. One is shameless self-advertising by people in government, or in related organizations supported by the taxpayers or donors, saying how nobler it is to be in “public service” than working in business or other “selfish” activities. In other words, the message is that it is morally superior to be in organizations consuming output produced by others than to be in organizations which produce that output. … The second theme….is to flatter the graduates that they are now equipped to go out into the world as “leaders” who can prescribe how other people should live.” Read the whole OpEd piece for more, equally incisive comments.
GEORGE WILL CITES FORMER INDIANA GOV, AND NOW PURDUE PRESIDENT, MITCH DANIELS—WHO GETS IT RIGHT!
Will is such a skilled writer that I won’t do more than introduce his OpEd piece and tell you that it is so right; that Mitch Daniels gets it so right, it is a must read, and must share.
HOW DID ALL THE LIBERALS GET INTO ACADEMIA AND MEDIA?
I clearly recall an answer to this question when I posed it to someone knowledgeable about where college graduates go to work. The message was this. The graduates finishing in the top half of classes predominantly are hired by the private sector: businesses, who can and do pay higher salaries for the best and the brightest. In these jobs, wealth is created, global innovations are created, and the free enterprise based economic development of the USA was created and is sustained in spite of forces trying to tear it down. Graduates ranking in the lower half of the classes head to places where they get paid far less (because of their lower academic ranking) but in which they can have a disproportionate amount of power and influence compared to their intellectual prowess (at least as demonstrated by their college class rank.)
Do some brilliant people from the top half go into academia and media? Sure they do I just cited a couple of them. Do some of the lower ranking graduates make their way into business jobs? Of course. Exceptions exist to every rule or trend. BUT…think about President Barack Obama’s example. He became a community organizer and a part time adjunct law professor. Did he sacrifice a cushy, big bucks legal job? Maybe? Or maybe he wasn’t up for the competition in the big leagues of the legal profession, so he defaulted to where his voice would have disproportionate influence with a less educated segment of society. Is tenure one of the remnants of bygone centuries that has morphed from a tool to protect the brilliant from meddlers, to a tool to protect the mediocre from discovery and rejection You decide.
Stay tuned for an exciting next edition. I received an early copy of a booklet—20 very impressive pages—from friend Herb Meyer, the former Vice Chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council under President Ronald Reagan. Meyer was the first highly ranked government official to foresee and predict the fall of the Berlin Wall. His book let is entitled: Why is the World So Dangerous? Next edition I’ll tease you with excerpts and tell you where you can get copies to read and share.
Best, JOHN
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