My world is changing

On Monday morning I was sitting in the Hyatt Regency in Chicago having breakfast and reading the Wall Street Journal. Tehran was erupting into brilliant revolt, Netanyahu was talking the two-state solution, and most of the folks at the table were eating whole grain cereal or like me, having egg white omelets with low-fat cheese.

For a few startling moments, I felt breathless with excitement. I hadn't felt like this for a long time, since the Vietnam Peace Treaty was signed in Paris in the early 70's.

The American Medical Association was holding its conference at the Hyatt, here in Chicago, the heart of American capitalism and know-how. Chicago is so much more American than New York which is too edgy, too cosmopolitan, too spoiled for most Americans. So Chicago stands today as the perfect American city. Even the doctors, masters of the universe that they have become accustomed to being, seemed slightly out of sync with the energy of the city, the city that brought the world President Obama.

Some day soon these doctors will face a form of socialized medicine. And along with the end of big business keeping poor people from getting decent medical care in the U.S., the world is changing so rapidly I realized on Monday morning in Chicago that no one is actually talking about it. My world, that one I've known since I was a kid growing up in Windsor and Detroit is taking a huge historical turn. Right here in Chicago and across the globe--- in the MIddle East, in Iran, Israel and Palestine.

Watch out, the times are a changin? My suggestion, friends, is to keep an eye on Obama's chief strategisit David Axelrod who is just like us and knows what he is doing.

Activist Journalism

A lot of what we're seeing online today is actually a return, full circle, to the way things were when American newspapers began; a mixture of advocacy and investigative in-your-face journalism. There is a long and distinguished history of such newspapers -- from the papers that were fiercely loyal to Jefferson or Hamilton, to the abolitionist broadsheets, to the activist newspapers at the turn of the century. As my partner Arianna Huffington says, the mission of journalism has always been "truth-seeking, not striking some fictitious balance between two sides." And anyway, who can doubt that it's always been important to give consumers what they want.

Kenneth Lerer delivered the following speech at the Columbia Journalism School Annual New Media Lecture Series on Thursday, April 23, 2009.

GM and Chrysler Bankrupt at Last

The last thing I want to do is to read ulterior motive into the looming bankruptcies at GM and Chrysler. Pretty well everyone on the planet realizes that these black smoke companies, once at the top of the heap of profit generating centres of wealth here and in the U.S., are mainly the authors of their own demise. What is sticking in my craw is that the Conservative government cabinet, filled with old Mike Harris men, is acting a tad too energetically about cutting auto workers wages down. Today In Washington, Obama introduced more funding for the ailing companies presumably to safeguard worker's job. Will some one convince me that Ottawa isn't engaging in good, old-fashioned union busting.

End of Massive Consumption Binge

By Vernon Smith: Professor of Economics & 2002 Nobel Laureate

"We economists were wrong. The events of the past 10 years have an eerie similarity t the period leading up to the Great Depression...In 1920 residential mortgage debt was 10.2 per cent of household wealth; by 1929 it was 27.2 per cent of household wealth. It appears that both the Great Depression and the current crisis had their origins in excessive consumer debt --especially mortgage debt--that transmitted into the financial sector during a sharp downturn...It appears that we're witnessing the second great consumer debt crash, the end of a massive consumption binge."

Admitting that economists make mistakes is a good first step. The next step would be to stop blaming consumers for over spending when the entire advertising machine was created to goad people into purchasing what they don't need. So what needs to happen now is that economic gurus and media pundits should stop pretending that Wall Street isn't in better shape than Main Street. By the end of summer the TSX will be up past 11,000. What will be destroyed are the lives of "ordinary people." Rescue packages have kicked in for the banks, but the devaluation of private real estate coupled with huge job losses means that hundreds of thousands of families will never recover-- not from lost income and lost savings that were cashed in when" little " investors lost their nerve. Pensioners from the automative industry will end up working at Tim Hortons in order to say afloat.

As Noble Prize Laureate in Economics, Professor Vernon L. Smith says: "We've had a real estate bubble, a technology bubble, then another real estate bubble to deal with, in just the past 20 years." I don't know about you, but all my so- called retirement and investment plans that high priced financial planners have sold me, are out the window. So much for Freedom 55.

What's Next?

Last evening I was teaching my Canadian Journalism for Internationally Trained Writers class. What an amazing bunch they are: literate, serious, dedicated.....

The class is small so I have time to pay attention to what I'm teaching and who I am teaching, That all made me think about the size of classes we are teaching today, the number of classes and the demands on the college professor. As SWFs are being maximized, I'm wondering about the concept of teaching with integrity at the post-secondary level. For me that means time to prepare for classes that are backed up by lots of online material, a welcoming Power Point presentation and lots of time for discussion and debate. If we water down what we do to cut every economic corner imaginable what happens to thinking and reflecting, staying abreast of the latest in your field, and getting to know the needs of your students?

Thanks everyone

I want to thank everyone who voted for me.  Your overwhelming vote of confidence is heartening--- to say the least.  Please stay in touch through this blog or by phone or email so I can remain aware of your concerns and ideas. Right from the beginning of my bid for the BOG, I hoped we could start a network of Sheridan faculty who are truly interested in creating a better teaching and learning environment at the college.

Don't forget to take a good long gander at the Ontario public employees Sunshine list for Colleges at www.fin.gov.on.ca/english/publications/salarydisclosure/2006/colleg06.html


And thank you again!

Academic Integrity

I'm running as your faculty representative for Sheridan's  Board of Governors.  My goals are to encourage

More emphasis on the people and the enormous wealth of talent teaching at the college as well as

• More meaningful consultation in management decision making
  
• More transparency in management decisions
  
• More community involvement particularly by helping the newly unemployed
  
• More emphasis on our core business: teaching and learning.
  

During my 21 years at Sheridan College, I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly here.  I've been the Director of the Sheridan Centre for Internationally Trained Individuals, and the driving force behind the development of much new programing such as the Canadian Journalism for Internationally Trained Writers program and the New Media Journalism program.

I've never been shy about speaking out for what I believe and if elected I promise to do my best to represent the  interests of faculty at the college.

I hope you will join my blog.  All comments regarding our working lives at Sheridan are welcome. If we can build a strong social network on this blog, we can influence how things are done.  We are only limited by our level of engagement and our imagination.