Month: August 2014

Last year, President Obama supported the idea of two-year law school programs.  This past May, conservative Justice Antonin Scalia railed against two-year law school programs (compared to the traditional three years). He argued that two years is not sufficient for training for the profession of law, but treats law school instead like a trade school.  

This week, liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg seconded Scalia’s motion, using essentially the same language:  

Two years—it does reduce the respect, the notion that law is a learned profession. You should know a little about legal history, you should know about jurisprudence. [Two years] makes it more of a craft like the training you need to be a good plumber.

Not sure why she thought to make a crack against plumbers.  Time and US News and World Report say the average plumber makes about $50,000 per year – not much less than a local prosecutor or public interest lawyer. Moreover, Time notes that a good plumber in Cincinnati with seven years experience can make $100,000 or more.  

In any case this gives us a chance to mention the Notorious R.B.G. tumblr.  Just because we can.

Thanks to Geopolitical Monitor for publishing this short intro to what’s going on in and around northern Iraq.

Whatever language you use – observers, air support, trainers – President Obama is sending the American military back to Iraq.

But the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) is not like the rest of Iraq…. 

… With difficulty and errors, but with determination, they have tried to build the foundations for a peaceful, prosperous, and even democratic society.  They have protected their own people, their minorities, and refugees.  After years of successfully attracting international investment, and even tourists, they now need the rest of the world more than ever.

More on Geopolitical Monitor…

As students return to their universities this month, and as many leave the bubble of high school for the first time, health officials are offering lessons about globalization and public health.  

American University explains that it has students from around the world and scholars that travel the world, including West Africa.  It offers a basic explanation that Ebola is difficult to transmit, and a link to the relevant CDC web page.

American University’s Associate Professor Susan Shepler spent this summer in Ebola-affected Sierra Leone and Liberia.  A scholar on youth and conflict, she offers some advice about Ebola.

Don’t need to comment on this, except to say how much fun it will be asking students to find their own irony, allegory, or applications of global political economy theory….

http://www.wired.com/2014/08/shark_cable/?mbid=social_twitter

With back-to-school timeliness, Slate posts an excerpt from the new book by William Deresiewicz, asking What do students want?  He concludes that they want a mommy and daddy.  Well, not exactly. More precisely, he offers that students “crave” mentorship, validation, and connection from “parental figures other than their parents.”  Elaborating:

…there are two things, above all, that students want from their pro­fessors. Not, as people commonly believe, to entertain them in class and hand out easy A’s. That’s what they retreat to, once they see that nothing better is on offer. What they really want is that their teach­ers challenge them and that they care about them. They don’t want fun and games; they want the real thing.   Continue reading “What do students want?”

You know how your phone works on wifi, everywhere?  You don’t care what kind of wireless router Starbucks or the airport or your office has, or who their ISP is.  And those places don’t care if you have an iPhone or Android, or who your carrier is.  Imagine if you could only call other people that had an iPhone, or only people on Verizon?

WiFi works with everyone because of an 1997 agreement, or standard, called IEEE 802.11.  All the relevant parties agreed to make their stuff work with each other.  Now, as we move toward an Internet of Things, they will be many more players.  Will they lay nicely together?  IEEE Spectrum investigates.

This week’s Washington Post Sunday magazine was an Education edition, and had several good pieces. One was a reflection on making the most of your semester studying abroad. It offered life lessons like learn the city, set goals, travel, keep a diary, live with a host family, learn the language.  All these are excellent suggestions.  But the author omits one more:  Work!  Yes, go to class and do your homework.  But more than that, find a job.  You may not have a visa that permits you to find paid employment.   And you may not speak the language.  No problem:  you find an internship.  You speak English, and so will many companies – American (or British) or not.  You can apply to intern in any of the U.S. government offices – embassy, consulate, etc.  NGOs, law firms, and many others will be interested as well.

Some universities’ study-abroad offices will help you with this – The Catholic University of America (Washington, D.C.), for example, has programs in the Ireland and UK parliaments, and with aid organizations in El Salvador.

Yes, by all means, learn the language, travel as much as you can, go to class, meet people from all over, enjoy the nightlife – and get some professional experience.  It’s a global world – show your future employers you know and you are ready.

PCworld reports on politics of a different sort: Congress and the President got together to serve We, the People – at least the People who want to unlock their cell phones. But only through 2015.  More here
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2460920/obama-signs-cellphone-unlocking-bill.html.