Arithmetic

Here's an emailed blurb about campaign finance that I found quite insightful and to the point (kind of scary too!). Full disclosure - it came from the Obama campaign.

Sheldon Adelson, the conservative billionaire Las Vegas casino owner, has pledged to give up to $100 million -- whatever it takes -- to defeat Barack Obama.

We know it's not out of love for Mitt Romney, so why part with so much money? As President Clinton reminded us last week, sometimes the answer is as simple as arithmetic.

So let's do the math: According to a new report from the Center for American Progress Action Fund, Adelson could see up to $2 billion in savings under Mitt Romney's tax plan versus the President's plan. That's how much Romney's policies would favor millionaires and billionaires.

If Mitt Romney wins -- $2 billion more for Adelson. If Barack Obama wins, millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share.

It's a highly cynical but straightforward calculation

Deep Patriotism

"Deep patriots don't just sing the song, 'America the Beautiful' and then go home. We actually stick around to defend America’s beauty -- from the oil spillers, the clear-cutters and the mountaintop removers. Deep patriots don't just visit the Statue of Liberty and send a postcard home to grandma. We defend the principles upon which that great monument was founded -- 'give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.'"

-Van Jones

A Thought provoking quote for today. Excellent in reclaiming patriotic symbols in service of valuing the collective investment required to sustain both "America the Beautiful" and "America the melting pot".

Also made me think about "Slow Patriotism" (a la Slow Food, Slow Money . . .) - that the investment required is a long-term investment not a quick-fix.

Interesting in reading more from Rebuild the Dream . . . click here

Here's a great list and review of Ten WordCloud Generators from Tech & Learning Advisors Blog http://www.techlearning.com/

(Michael Gorman) Welcome to a post that covers those other ten Word Cloud Generators and some are pretty amazing! While Wordle is the king of Word Cloud Generators here are some other word cloud tools that have some outstanding capabilities that are worth investigation. Each tool provides a unique way that can be used in the classroom to facilitate the creation and study of word clouds. I especially was impressed with a few tools that actually helped students analyze a group of text using more than just the generated cloud, another that allows the user to be creative with the cloud shape, and still another that connects words in the cloud to web pages! Thanks for the visit, and as always please feel free to follow me on Twitter (mjgormans), I will follow back and we can learn from each other. Also, be sure to visit my 21centuryedtech Blog and check out all of the free resources at my 21centuryedtech Wiki! – Have a great week and enjoy the read! – Mike

Wordle – (http://www.wordle.net) The king of word cloud generators ...

Tagxedo - (http://www.tagxedo.com/) ... The website proclaims, “Tag Clouds with Style”, a mission I feel was accomplished. ...

ABC Ya - (http://www.abcya.com/word_clouds.htm) This application may be the most Wordle like and, in fact, operates much like Wordle. ..

Tagul - (http://tagul.com/) – Tagul has some features that Wordle doesn’t, like custom shapes selection and multiple fonts usage in one cloud. ...

Word It Out (http://worditout.com/) –...This application allows the word cloud to be customized by size, font, and color scheme.

Tag Crowd (http://tagcrowd.com/) – While it does not give the color,unique style, or layout variation of of Wordle, it does allow one to see frequency of words. ...

Wordsift - (http://www.wordsift.com/) – This hidden gem from Stanford University does not give the pretty effects of Wordle, but does give several awesome features that allow students to really analyze a word cloud. ...

Make Word Mosiac – (http://www.imagechef.com/ic/word_mosaic/) – A creative tool put out by Image Chef. This is one tool in their suite of tools to be used for people who like to create. It allows for different shapes, colors, and fonts. ...

VocabGrabber – (http://www.visualthesaurus.com/vocabgrabber/) – Another creative tool that allows students to analyze a group of words. ...

TagCloudGenerator – (http://www.tag-cloud.de/) – This is a service that does not allow pasting in of text, but instead goes to a website that is entered by the user. ...

TagCloud - (http://www.tagcloud.com) – A word cloud generator since 2005 and is currently offline getting an overhaul. It is listed here so that it can be reviewed when it is back on-line.
http://www.techlearning.com/default.aspx?tabid=67&entryid=364

Where did the "Public" go in our Public School System?

Here’s a blurb about school fundraising that just came into my email. I would extend the argument made in the article below about equitable funding within a district to equity across the state. Tax dollars, allocated equally on a per student basis across the state, should fund an equitable public education for all. Local bonds, parcel taxes, and foundations create a 2 tiered system that provides higher income areas with more resources to backfilled decreased government funding while at the same time continues to let the public off the hook (i.e. more tax cuts) for funding public schools – which then hurts low income areas even more. It’s a negative reinforcing cycle that allows for more and more tax cut driven decreased public school funding. The people with the time and money to focus on education should be focused on education for all children, not on bake sale fundraisers for just their kids in their schools or even just their district. Every check we write to our local foundation takes tax money away from a school somewhere else in the state because it lets the public off the hook for funding all our schools. Isn’t there an innate and obvious hypocrisy in allowing “Private” foundations to fund “Public” schools? Should they even be allowed? Doesn’t funding your child’s school through a foundation go against the private inurement limitations on Public Benefit Nonprofits?

Tax-based school funding is like funding highways and police; it creates a system of common wealth to fund common services. Education lays the foundation for an informed citizenry; civic engagement & volunteerism; caring thoughtful neighbors that support and help one another; healthy life choices that decrease the cost of public services; and economic strength. The Return on Investment (ROI) is huge! Underinvesting is short sighted and will have disastrous consequences such as further expanding the wealth divide, between the 1% and the 99%, and increasing the demand for other kinds of expensive last resort, “safety net” public services (like jails and emergency rooms).

From the Nonprofit Newswire . . .

School District Insists-All for One and One for All Where Fundraising Is Concerned 

November 29, 2011; Santa Monica Daily Press | School districts find themselves less and less able to cover their budgets just with tax dollars but if parents fundraise for individual schools, kids in schools with higher income parents will get more resources. In Santa Monica/Malibu the school district has put its foot down and all fundraising for staff will go into a central pool.

Create Maps with Google Earth & Maps Tutorials

I was invited to participate in a two day Google Maps training last year as part of their outreach to nonprofits. It was a fantastic training and I have used the Mapping tools to create maps on the MarinSpace website. However, I always forget where the tutorial page is so I've decided to add it as blog post so I can always find it on my blog (I'm also using this as an excuse to experiment with iFrames as a way of embedding website content into a blog post - pretty cool if it works!)

Click here for link to the MarinSpace Google Map page
Click here for a link to the Google Outreach blog article about MarinSpace's use of the tool.