Distance Education

Here is a little paper I put together for work that discusses the technologies that allow for distance education to occur. The chart on page 2 has been receiving rave reviews from the colleges, with many of them taking it to use in their own discussions. Hopefully, it can help you understand the different types and dimensions that need to be considered when making decisions about which technology you need to use to accomplish a task.

Distance Ed.pdf

Control+Alt+Delete

The guy who wrote the Control+Alt+Delete code is retiring from IBM tomorrow after 28 1/2 years. In the article he talks about his most famous contribution to the PC world and gets a little funny jab in at Microsoft.

The Week in Review

Let's see, it has been a week since I've written... and so much has happened:

Dean Goes Nuts
First, I'm not sure why the media made such a big deal about this. I've listened to the speech and I kind of see the scream as a war cry. Sure it was unusual...but has Dean done anything the usual way? He raised more money than any of his rivals by harnessing the power of the internet and taking in hundreds of thousands of donations of less than $250. He hasn't pulled his family into his election. Finally, he speaks his mind and doesn't speak "Washingtonese." If it weren't for the fact that he is a pinko-commie (that's a phrase you just don't hear much anymore...ahhh...the days when the Wall stood). Anyway, the Democratic Establishment sees him as a loose cannon and they are scared of him. He can not be controlled...therefore, he must be marginalized. So they get their media moguls to make a big deal out of nothing. The Republicans are always looking for a way to poke fun at democrats...so they make a big deal out of nothing.

Now, Dean did get angry and go a little crazy during the speech. He was a little like a kid throwing a temper tantrum. Dean has always gotten everything he has wanted. It has been very easy for him. I think this is the first time he has ever been denied anything. Because of that, he feels he is entitled to what he wants. When that entitlement is pulled from his grasp, he falters into a frenzy.

Bush the big Spender
The State of the Union speech was marvelous, except for the new entitlements and the big spending. The whole line about keeping the increase to only 4% this year. Puh-lease. I want a president who says we will reduce the budget by 4% this year. We will find ways to be more efficient and get rid of pork and wasteful spending. For a man who is running on a platform of limited of government, he sure is adding a lot to it. He has yet to name one federal program he has cut. I can not believe that there is not one...just one, itsy-bitsy , tiny-winy piece of the federal government that could be sliced from the budget or the administration. But, hey, what do I know...I just have to manage my family's budget. I know nothing about living inside your means...

Great Website for Election Season
Want the unspun truth?

Jury does the Right Thing
have your heard about the two sisters, Louise Sawyer and Grace Fuller, who decided that they were going to make some big bucks from a harmless nursery rhyme on an airline? They boarded a Southwest Airlines flight in Las Vegas to return home. While the airplane was at the gate a flight attendant got on the intercom and said "Eenie, meenie, minie moe; pick a seat, we gotta go." They're black and they claim that the little poem was aimed at them. Many, Many years ago, the poem ended in "pick a *offense term to black people* by the toe." I didn't know this...I always thought it was about a ferocious feline. Obviously, though, the airline stewardess knew the racial overtones and was directing that racism towards them. They were so upset by the slight that they suffered physical and emotional distress. Racism rearing its ugly head yet again.

Well, the case went to trial in Kansas City on Tuesday. By Wednesday night the jury had told the sisters that they didn't have a case. Sorry, girls. No money. You're just going to have to live with the physical and emotional distress. If there was true justice out there you would be picking up all of Southwest's legal costs as well.

Bid Award
The committee I've been working on decided to whom the bid should be awarded. Its a secret until this coming Friday, though...

Internet Redesign
I'm also working on redesigning the Alabama College System website. I've split it into three separate sections: a Public side, an extranet for College Personnel, and an Intranet for Department personnel. We are cleaning up the graphics, moving to a standardized format, and database driving as much of the content as possible. The project will be ready to reveal on or about March 1.

Area Wide Youth Devo
On Sunday our church hosted an area wide youth devo. We had about 300 teenagers from churches from Birmingham to Birmingham. After the devo, a punk rock band named Bixler played. You can see pictures of them performing at our church on their website. It was pretty cool. I was at church all day on Sunday because I helped them get set-up and cleaned up after they left. We never did anything like this when I participated in TABS in high school...I wonder why???

That's enough
Sorry for the really long post...I will try to be better this week and get here more often to update this. It was just such a busy week at home and work. I've got four big projects at work (bids, website, technology task force, and new web-based time and leave system). I worked on my project for my brother this past weekend, spent all day Sunday at church, and Erin and I filled out all of the adoption paperwork. We have our first in-home meeting next Tuesday (Feb. 3) at 6:00 PM. I've got three big projects I'm working with Joe on...but I can't talk about those...corporate secret.

Barbarians and Wimps: A Look at "Men" of my Generation

The History Channel (by far one of the best set of programming ever produced) is having "Barbarian Week." It has been an exciting series of looking into the past of Western Civilization and understanding the impact that the Vikings, the Goths, the Vandals, the Huns, and other violent groups of people have had on the formation of Western thought and philosophy. There is one trait that makes all of these groups barbarians: the lack of respect for other people's and group's right to life, liberty, and property.

This has prompted me to think about my generation. My generation (Generation X) seems to have lost the respect for others that my father's, grandfather's and great-grandfather's generation had. I am seeing a trend in which the men of my generation fall into one or two broad categories; they are either barbarians or they are wimps. A generation of teaching the equality of the sexes has withered away the meaning of manhood.

Manhood is not simply a matter of being male and reaching a certain age. These are acts of nature; manhood is a sustained act of character. It is no easier to become a man than it is to become virtuous. In fact, the two are the same. The root of our old-fashioned word "virtue" is the Latin word virtus, a derivative of vir, or man. To be virtuous is to be "manly." As Aristotle understood it, virtue is a "golden mean" between the extremes of excess and deficiency. Too often among today's young males, the extremes seem to predominate. One extreme suffers from an excess of "manliness", or from misdirected and unrefined manly energies. The other suffers from a lack of manliness, a total want of manly spirit. Call them barbarians and wimps.

Today's barbarians are not hard to find. Like the barbarians of old, the new ones wander about in great packs. You can recognize them by their dress, their speech, their amusements, their manners, and their treatment of women. You will know them right away by their distinctive headgear. They wear baseball caps everywhere they go and in every situation: in class, at the table, indoors, outdoors, while taking a test, while watching a movie, while on a date. They wear these caps frontward, backward, and sideways. They will wear them in church and with suits, if ever a barbarian puts on a suit. Part security blanket, part good-luck charm, these distinctive head coverings unite each barbarian with the rest of the vast barbaric horde.

The ancient barbarians did little except fight and hunt. The modern barbarians do little besides play sports and pursue women. To be sure, they have other amusements. But these activities do not as a rule require sensibility or thought. Indeed, typical barbarian pastimes, like drinking mightily and watching WWF wrestling, seem expressly contrived to stupefy the senses and nullify the intellect.

Young males, of course, have always been rough around the edges. But in the past, their edges were smoothed, in part, by being introduced into female company. Boys learned to behave properly first from their mothers (Thank God for mine) and later around other women and girls. They held open doors, pulled out chairs, stood up when a woman entered a room, stood up in public places to offer their seats, took off their hats in the presence of women, and carefully guarded their language so as not to offend the fair sex. All that is gone. In no other aspect of their conduct is barbarism more apparent among a large number of young men these days than in their treatment of women.

At the other extreme from true manliness is the wimp. Wimps are in many ways the opposite of barbarians. We would be mistaken, however, to classify wimps as simply young men without muscle. Often enough they are the stereotypical 98-pound weaklings who get sand kicked in their faces at the beach. But slightness of build and want of talent in sports do not make one a wimp. The diminutive and sickly James Madison was a man, just as was the towering and vigorous George Washington.

If barbarians suffer from a misdirected manliness, wimps suffer from a want of manly spirit altogether. They lack the part of the soul that contains the assertive passions: pugnacity, enterprise, ambition, anger. These principles compel a man to defend himself, his honor, his lady, his country; as well as universal principles., such as, truth, beauty, goodness, justice. Without men of manly spirit to combat the cruel, the malevolent, and the unjust, goodness and honor hardly have a chance in our precarious world.

Wimps make worthless watchdogs. But their failure as watchdogs or guardians has nothing to do with size or physique. There is an old saying, "It is not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog" that matters. Many of today's young men seem to have no fight in them at all. Not for them to rescue "damsels in distress" from the barbarians. Furthermore, wimps vote. As Aristotle pointed out, to the cowardly, bravery will seem more like rashness and foolhardiness than what it really is. Hence political and social issues that require bravery for their solution elicit only hand-wringing and half-measures from the wimps. Wimps are always looking for the easy way out.

You can also spot a by his approach to dating and relationships. While the barbarian has simple appetites when it comes to women (his ideal is the Playboy playmate and his ultimate aim in any relationship is sex). The wimp, on the other hand, has more complex reasons for wanting women. Although sex is certainly one of his desires, more than sex he needs affirmation. He desperately needs a girlfriend to boost his self-confidence. Having someone else notice him will somehow show the world that he is not a total loser. The wimp also needs someone to hear his laments, to commiserate with him when he is feeling down, to discover his secret self. Since he has few qualities or achievements to recommend him, he seeks to appear "interesting" or mysterious. Initially, the wimp might seem amusing to an unsuspecting young lady and very different from the insensitive jocks and rowdies she has known. Ultimately, however, the wimp seeks to draw her into his web of melancholy and self-pity. The story always ends unhappily since romance cannot be based upon pity or the thin facade of personality. He might mope and whine his way into a woman's bed but will find excuses to avoid "commitment." The wimp will begin the relationship by saying, "You're the only one who understands me" and end it by saying, "You don't understand me at all." The truth is that there is not much to understand.

Needless to say, these sketches are not exhaustive. Barbarians and wimps come in many forms in a society that celebrates Diversity as we do. But all of them remind us that Plato's quandary was a timeless one and is our quandary no less than his. Our civilization cannot be sustained by barbarians or wimps; it needs true men.

Good enough for the Goose...

Democrats are voicing outrage that Bush has made a recess appointment of Judge Charles Pickering to serve on the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Under the law, recess appointments serve one year, which means that Judge Pickering will be serving until the 109th Congress convenes in January 2005.

Daschle is quoted in the Washington Times as saying, "It is now clear that the White House will exploit any procedural tactic in order to pack the courts with right-wing ideologues." Of course Daschle fails to mention that the Democrats have used a procedural tactic, the filibuster, to keep Pickering off the circuit court even though, in the latest Senate vote, 54 senators voted in his favor.