Book Review: Polio: An American Story

Title
Polio: An American Story
(Winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in History)

Author
David M. Oshinsky
George Littlefield Professor of American History, Department of History, University of Texas

Publication Date
2005

Publication Information
Oxford University Press; 288 pages

Political Trackers: Potentially benefitting society, but more likely not.

Here's a recent article on political trackers from the Star Tribune:

http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/101038219.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUycaEacyU

I haven't really heard of these people before, but it doesn't really surprise me given the ease of recording and disseminating video now.

One of the goals of tracking as listed in the article is ensuring politicians keep the same message instead of telling different groups what they want to hear, which seems to be a good thing. However, if it's more a witch hunt for the "gotcha" moment as is also mentioned, I wouldn't view it as favorably. Since people are rarely as noble as they like to make out, I tend to think it's more of the latter than the former.

Either way, I'm a bit skeptical of this tactic. It seems regardless of the intent, if this is employed successfully, the end result will be encouraging political parties to get candidates that can maintain a strict public persona without any hiccups or flaws, which is likely to mean that they're good at being fraudulent. The less politicians are able to be human and err (in normal ways, I'm not referring to corruption or anything like that), the worse off we are.

Thoughts?

MR OBAMA, TEAR DOWN THAT MOSQUE!

Before I say anything, I just want to make it clear that it is somewhat amazing to me that this even makes national news as it should have stayed in the confines of the Lower Manhattan Zoning Office, thank FoxNews in all likelihood for that.

Is college worth the costs?

Original Post by Papa TaggartRR (e-mail correspondence)
Posted here via TaggartRR
Feel free to join the conversation.

Interesting. I have thought this for a while. If parents took the same $80-90k that the spent on college and invested it in the child's name and the child learned some trade, would they be better off at 50 years old?

Is it worth it to go to college?
For people considering college, perhaps the greatest lesson of the Great Recession is not that you shouldn't go to college but that you should make sure the investment will pay off.

Source:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38561562/from/toolbar