Blogs

The Money Myth: School Resources, Outcomes, and Equity by W. Norton Grubb. Russell Sage Foundation. 2009. 400 pages. $35.

Increased funding does not guarantee improved school performance, according to Berkeley education professor W. Norton Grubb in The Money Myth. Despite lavish funding, he says, many U.S. school districts lag far behind others in the quality of education they offer their students. Those students will consequently be at a steep disadvantage throughout their adult lives.

(What?  You don't know what the heck "Eschatological" means either?  Let's ask our friends at Wikipedia: 

I’ll skip the poetry and just try and convey what went
through my mind through the launch. 

Given some stereotypes of social media users (I just told
a reporter from the German Press Agency that the Star Trek ones are
true :) ) this group is not a bunch of people who prefer to stare at their
iPhones instead of making eye contact.  In fact, their most defining
characteristic is the ability to have a great conversation.  They're
interesting and interested.  Their hyper sharing online translates into
hyper helpfulness offline.  And given the friendly nature of the
technical social channels, there's much more of a "we're all in this

Miles O'Brien was a featured speaker at today's NASA Tweetup for STS-129.  After a terrific speech (watch it here via UStream)about how the internet has changed journalism, he was kind enough to share his thoughts with me on how the quality of information delivered via social channels can be superior to that found in traditional media.  Listen carefully because I think Miles coined a new term that should resonate in social circles...the "editorial commons." 

Astronaut Mike Massimino on the stage now...he's the first person to Tweet from space.  "That's one 140 character message for man, one giant leap for social kind."  Sorry.  Way to cheesy.  But how can you not revert to being 10 years old at something like this?  Check out the famous video of Mike fixing the Hubble, and then later on Craig Ferguson.

 "On this day, before the eyes of an enormous gathering two men rose into the air...Two hundred thousand men, lifting their hands in wonder, admiring, glad, astonished; some in tears for fear the intrepid physicists should come to harm, some on their knees overcome with emotion, but all following the aeronauts in spirit...What with the novelty, the dignity of the experiment, the unclouded sky, welcoming as it were the travelers to his own element, the attitude of the two men sailing into the b

Off to a good start with Jon Cowart, the Arez I-X deputy mission manager on the ecology of Cape Canaveral.

On a related note...Right around 1960, Jay Barbree of NBC, the only reporter
to cover every spaceflight from Sputnik onward, found the Cape Canaveral of 1960 a place
where "bear-shared the natural habitat with alligator and deer, and
Indians buried their dead on sacred mounds."