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Bandwidth for Schools

A National Broadband Policy needs to be more than just a talking point. Schools in our country need to upgrade their internet bandwidth to 25 Megabytes per second. This is for every school — not just the K12 district who slices up the bandwidth based upon the total number of school buildings in the district. The technology and educational impact upon our schools: leaving them behind just when students from around the world are joining and benefiting from the broadband educational internet.

Playing catch-up
Today we find a majority of schools around the country in the educational slow lane. For some reason it does not matter if the school is remote or urban, many are connecting at just 5 Megabits/second. Its like teaching history with books that still recognize Russia as the old Soviet Union….oh how I miss Gorgachev.
Any college connecting at less than 10MB — shows a lack of understanding and vision for their students who enter higher education seeking not just a degree but an advantage to enter the global marketplace.

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Education Globalization Reading

Latest read: The Looming Tower

Lawrence Wright has written an amazing book that helps us understand al-Qaeda. His book The Looming Tower: al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11 is very well written and as a result very upsetting.  This deservedly won the Pulitzer Prize.
The Looming TowerWould you be surprised to learn foundations of al-Qaeda began from an Egyptian enrolled in grad school at the University of Northern Colorado in 1949? His name was Sayyid Qutb. He began the modern Islamist movement that today is al-Qaeda.

Wright documents the wealth of the bin Laden’s family which provided Osama bin Laden the financial ability to forward his own view of the world through terrorism. Osama bin Laden promoted great myths of Islam defeating massive Soviet troops in Afghanistan to sell his vision…including the dreams of airplanes hitting buildings and his relationship with Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The Looming Tower uncovers frustrating examples of how the US government failed to stop the attacks on 9/11 even when small teams within our intelligence agencies had evidence of the coming attacks. But they were fighting each other. The CIA purposefully withheld evidence from the FBI. This shows how broken our intelligence systems were organized and how they failed America.

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Reading

Latest read: Chain of Command

One lesson: Abu Ghraib and Photography…just don’t mix. Seymour Hersh has provided the details and background to this scandal in great depth in the pages of Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib.
chain of commandAs one who learned about this breakdown from traditional news sources Hersh provides criticism for the Bush Administration and Donald Rumsfeld with a new insider view of the breakdown of command and control.

Clearly the treatment depicted in photographs now famous only harms future American interests and the war on Al Qaeda.

Acceptable Torture? Hersh has stated our actions (photos) have given the green light to our current and future enemies: a ready-made excuse to ignore Geneva Conventions. Don’t like where this goes…for our futures.

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Education Reading

Latest read: Against All Enemies

For some reason I picked up Richard Clarke’s book Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror and left it on my shelf. Once I started it was difficult to put down.
Against All EnemiesI decided to read Woodward’s Bush at War instead. Then for some reason I moved to a very lengthy book by Stephen Ambrose about Richard Nixon. Regardless after a couple of months it was time to read this book.

As Clarke reveals American intelligence, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush knew so much about Bin Laden & Al Qaeda before 9/11!  Clarke was unable to address terrorism threats to the Bush Administration (requested in January 2001) until September 4th.

I simply cannot explain how upset I became as more of Richard Clarke’s words were revealed…and could not put this book down either. I can only suggest others who have read this book state: everyone should read this book.