Analysis: Understanding the higher education bubble through Caddyshack

Statistics are boring, at least 85 percent of the time. Even the compelling ones tend to make your eyes glaze over. This little statistics-filled essay about the higher-education bubble aims to keep you interested, though, by relating said higher-education bubble to something we can all identify with: the 1980 movie ?Caddyshack.?

?Caddyshack? is a lot of things. It?s hilarious. It?s a loosely-plotted, deeply-flawed yet brilliant American classic held together, somehow, by a dancing gopher. It also happens to be a museum-quality time capsule concerning consumer prices.

If you pay attention, ?Caddyshack? is full of all kinds of wonderful, offhand price indicators. For example, we learn that a bottle of Coca-Cola was decidedly overpriced at 50 cents in 1980. Adjusting for inflation, that?s a little over $1.30 today. A snack bar menu at Bushwood Country Club advertises cheeseburgers for $1.75 ($4.50 or so today), hot dogs for 75 cents (roughly $2 today) and potato chips for 40 cents (about $1.05 today). If you?ve been to a golf course lately, or an airport, or a 7-Eleven, none of these inflation-adjusted prices should strike you as remotely shocking.

?Caddyshack? also serves as a unique commentary on the way college sticker prices have spiraled out of control. The thin plot involves a quest by the main character, Danny Noonan (Michael O?Keefe) to pay for college. Danny is a kid from a working-class Catholic family. He recently graduated from high school with admittedly lousy grades. He lives in a fairly large city which is located somewhere in Nebraska ? for reasons known only to the writers (Brian Doyle-Murray, Harold Ramis and Douglas Kenney), and despite the palm trees dotting the film. It?s impossible to say which city exactly, but The Cornhusker State is sorely lacking in major metropolitan areas. Omaha and Lincoln seem like the only plausible candidates.

During the summer, Danny is a caddy at Bushwood, a haven for Nebraskan WASPs. On a typical day, he earns something like $30 plus tips, so call it $35. That?s over $90 in today?s dollars ? not too shabby for a day carrying golf bags. By way of comparison, the modern-day minimum wage for 8 hours of work is $58.

In the opening scene, Danny?s father chides him about college. If Danny doesn?t go, his father warns, he?ll soon find himself working in a lumberyard.

We next see Danny caddying for Ty Webb (Chevy Chase), an eccentric of sorts, and a scratch golfer. Danny tells Ty what his father has just told him: it?s either college or the lumberyard. Danny also mentions that college will cost $8,000 per year, and he knows his parents don?t have that kind of money.

According to Danny, the school he will attend if he can amass the funds is called St. Copious. Reports are that there are only two girls on campus, both nuns. Piecing together the evidence, then, St. Copious appears to be a small Catholic school located either in the city where Danny lives or within a reasonable driving distance.

Benedictine College fits the bill nicely. It?s a small Catholic school in Atchison, Kansas, some 160 miles from both Omaha and Lincoln. In today?s dollars, the grand total for tuition, room and board at Benedictine is about $30,600 ? 283% more than the $8,000 Danny expected to pay in 1980. Factoring in inflation, stuff that cost $8,000 then would typically cost about $21,000 now. That?s a much lower increase of 163 percent. So, obviously, while the cost of living has gone up considerably in the last 32 years, the cost of a private undergraduate education has absolutely skyrocketed.

Of course, it?s kind of mean to pick on poor Benedictine College. The current price there is downright affordable compared to many private schools. If Danny were to attend Creighton University in Omaha today, he?d have to shell out $33,330 annually for just tuition alone. That?s a 317% increase over Danny?s $8,000 in 1980. If Danny plans to pay for room and board at Creighton as well, the cost in 2012 is $42,776, which would be a whopping 435% increase.

The climax of ?Caddyshack? involves a high-stakes golf match. About halfway through 18 holes, Al Czervik (Rodney Dangerfield), who is awful at golf, fakes an injury. Danny decides to fill in for him, thus forfeiting the caddy scholarship he had brown-nosed so hard to earn, but reclaiming his dignity. When Danny is putting on the last green, the score of the match is tied. An ever-increasing bet on the match is a bit hard to follow, but we understand that either Czervik or Judge Elihu Smails (Ted Knight) will owe $80,000 depending on the outcome.

Remember: it?s 1980, and Danny has said that his education at a private Catholic college will cost $8,000 per year. Consequently, the $80,000 wager represented enough for him to spend an entire decade getting his degree. In 2012, with inflation, $80,000 equates to nearly $209,000. This same inflation-adjusted amount would pay for fewer than seven years of tuition, room and board at Benedictine today. At Creighton, it wouldn?t pay for 5 years. (And, for the record, $209,000 wouldn?t even pay for four years at New York University).

What has made the cost of undergraduate education cost so ludicrous? Well, it?s a complicated story ? much more complex than ?Caddyshack,? and not nearly as entertaining. In a nutshell, though, schools have responded to well-intentioned government efforts to subsidize college education through loans by pushing prices perpetually higher. And these higher prices have caused students to borrow more and more money. The result, in addition to the absurd prices, is over $1 trillion in student loan debt.

Other reasons for increased costs include grossly bloated and inefficient college bureaucracies. Professors are teaching far fewer courses, too. Also, schools are offering too many Bushwood-like luxuries. Creighton, just for example, boasts a 48,000 square-foot athletic facility, complete with batting cages and a suspended two-lane running track. So, students have such frills going for them, which is nice. However, newly-minted college graduates today start their careers with over $25,000 in average debt, which they cannot discharge in bankruptcy, even on their deathbeds. That?s not very nice at all.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-understanding-higher-education-bubble-caddyshack-060209518.html

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Can the auto bailout save Obama in Ohio?

A sign outside United Auto Workers Local 1714 in Lordstown (Liz Goodwin/Yahoo!)

LORDSTOWN, Ohio?In March 2009, Dave Green, president of United Auto Workers' Local 1714, felt a creeping panic. Men holding clipboards and taking notes walked around the Lordstown General Motors plant where his members worked, and from outside came the constant hum of inventory-taking helicopters. Rumors flew that the GM plant, which employed thousands of workers, was going to be sold off or liquidated, another casualty of the recession.

"We knew the money was running out," Green, a Barack Obama supporter, said. "We didn't know what was going to happen."

Within the next two months, the Obama administration bailed out GM as well as Chrysler, aided by billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded loans. In exchange, the companies declared bankruptcy and reorganized. While the federal government is expected to lose about $19 billion of the $80 billion it handed to industry?an industry smaller than it was before the recession hit?it's no longer at death's door.

(The unofficial slogan at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte last month: "Bin Laden is dead and GM is alive.")

Even better for locals: In August, GM announced it would invest an extra $200 million in the Lordstown plant so that its 4,500 workers could continue to build the popular Chevy Cruze, an unexpected best-seller, in three shifts each day.

It makes sense, then, that union leaders in Lordstown are out in force to get the president re-elected, and that Obama and his campaign continually tout the president as a savior of Ohio's auto industry and, by extension, its economy. But it remains to be seen whether Ohioans are buying what the campaign's selling.

In this hotly contested state, where residents almost always pick the next president, Obama is contending with a shrinking union rank and file not always in lockstep with the union party line. And while independent analysts say the car industry would have failed without the bailout, some voters in Ohio, where one in eight jobs is related to the auto industry, aren't convinced.

Romney is fast gaining ground in the state?last week he drew large, enthusiastic crowds when campaigning?and Obama has seen his lead narrow to 2 percentage points in an?average of seven polls taken after his lackluster first debate performance.

Perhaps even more problematic for the president's bailout pitch is that unions are a declining force in Ohio politics. Union households make up 15 percent of the electorate, down from about 22 percent 20 years ago, according to University of Cincinnati political science professor Al Tuchfarber. They still, however, wield power. Last November, Ohio resoundingly recalled a bill supported by Republican Gov. John Kasich that stripped public unions' collective bargaining rights.

[Political junkie? Sign up for the Yahoo! News Daily Ticket newsletter today]

When campaigning in Ohio last week, Romney spoke about the economy and argued that Obama hasn't created enough jobs, especially in the manufacturing sector. But two words that did not cross his lips? "Auto bailout."

The GOP challenger and his surrogates generally steer clear of the topic when in Ohio, and for good reason: In 2008, Romney wrote an op-ed in The New York Times arguing that car companies would collapse if taxpayer money helped fund a bailout, and that GM and Chrysler could restructure themselves after going through a privately financed bankruptcy. The Obama campaign has continually flung the op-ed, "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt," in the campaign's face, arguing that Romney's plan would have left Ohio in the cold.

Romney didn't visit Lordstown on his five-day Ohio swing last week, but New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a top Romney supporter, stopped by to attend a small rally on Tuesday. The town of 4,000, which GM has labeled "Cruze Country," is heavily Democratic, and attendees at the Christie rally joked about being outnumbered in the area. But two neighboring counties, which also benefit economically from the plant and are home to some plant workers, are expected to vote for Romney.

Christie didn't mention the auto plant in his brief address.

Both Local 1714's Green and Glenn Johnson, the president of another UAW local in Lordstown also supporting Obama, said it made no sense for Christie to speak there without mentioning the town's economic engine. "It was a crossroads, literally a crossroads," Johnson said of the town before the plant.

But Christie had his loyalists. Jim Kane, a 63-year-old former auto worker forced into early retirement in 2009, stood close to the stage, eager to hear the governor speak. Kane, a Republican, is among a group of about 20,000 retired workers at Delphi, a parts supplier once owned by GM, whose pensions were cut by 30 percent or more by the government during the bailout. (In bankruptcy negotiations, Delphi relinquished its pension obligations to the government, which then cut the amount it would pay by 30 to 70 percent.)

GM agreed to make up the difference in the pensions of Delphi workers who were members of the UAW union, while salaried workers like Kane, who for the most part weren't allowed to join the hourly-wage worker union, were left with slashed pensions and health insurance. The uneven treatment prompted criticisms of union favoritism.

A veteran with diabetes, Kane was able to get insurance through Veterans Affairs when GM cut his health-care coverage, but his wife, who has rheumatoid arthritis, and his autistic son are still uninsured.

"We're living so close to the edge right now," Kane said. "I agree with Romney, I believe that places like GM would have taken care of themselves under bankruptcy. GM would have made it through."

(Lordstown's Republican mayor, Arlo Hill, also told Yahoo News he thinks the plant would have survived without the bailout.)

Christie was introduced by UAW member Mark Bedenik, who traveled to Lordstown from Cleveland, where he works at parts supplier Alcoa Cleveland Works. Bedenik wore a bright-yellow UAW shirt altered to read Romney-Ryan. After the event, he clutched his laminated introduction speech as two other UAW workers thanked Bedenik for speaking.

Bedenik, like many other union members, has been canvassing for his candidate. He says he's seeing past and present union members who are newly minted Republicans, and who don't believe the bailout saved the auto industry or jobs in general. "I've gone door to door," he said. "You will see their vote."

Green said he feels most active and retired union members will vote for Obama and that Bedenik is the exception. Green, along with other supporters, is also knocking on doors and making calls, reminding Ohioans that they or someone they know might be out of a job if not for Obama. Supporters credit Ohio's lower-than-average unemployment rate (7.2 percent in August compared to 8.1 percent nationally) to Obama's policies, especially the bailout.

"They feel like they owe this government something and this president something because he was taking a lot of shots for supporting us," Green said of his local's approximately 5,000 members.

About a mile away from the Lordstown park where Christie spoke, volunteers in a wood-paneled conference room in the Local 1714 union hall take shifts calling the union's 3,500 retired and 1,500 active members to ask them to support Obama. Last week union member Kelvin Harlemon worked the phone. He said he had talked to a few members who supported Obama in 2008 but now leaned toward Romney.

"Good morning! This is Kelvin Harlemon over here at 1714," he boomed into the phone. "We're just calling out to our union brothers and sisters. ... Are you intending to vote this year in our presidential election?" Harlemon stared blankly ahead for nearly a minute before saying, "He hung up." He laughed. "What a job."

Nine of the 16 people who answered the phone over a 20-minute period told Harlemon they planned to vote for Obama. Six people hung up on him. One person yelled into the phone, "Yeah I'm going to vote, but I don't like either one of them," and then hung up.

Earlier in the morning, a retired union member told Harlemon that he was an Obama supporter but thought he'd vote for Romney. "Now [Obama's] talking about Big Bird," the man told Harlemon. "I don't want to hear about Big Bird. I'm voting for Mitt." Harlemon reminded the man that Obama had supported labor in the past, and that Romney was against the bailout. The man said he would take this into consideration.

Green (who does an uncanny Bill Clinton impression) said he tells union members they don't have to love Obama to vote for him.

"I love Bill, wish he could run," Green said of the former president. "But you don't have to love Obama, you know. I mean he's not the magic god. ... He's just a guy. But he at least believes in labor. So if you work in labor you ought to slap yourself in the head if you think the other guy will do you better."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/auto-bailout-save-obama-ohio-175418009--election.html

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DesJarlais denies hypocrisy for talk of abortion

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) ? A Republican congressman from Tennessee is telling supporters he's not a hypocrite for discussing abortion with a mistress more than a decade ago. But now he may also have to defend his medical license.

Rep. Scott DesJarlais, a physician who opposes abortion rights, said in a letter that he was "deeply sorry" that supporters had to find out about the relationship with a patient that occurred while DesJarlais was separated from his first wife. But he said he used stark language about traveling to Atlanta to get an abortion try to get the woman to acknowledge that she wasn't pregnant.

"I appreciate that this was an imprudent approach to this situation and I'm not proud of it," DesJarlais wrote in the letter. "In retrospect I should have dealt with these matters in a more diplomatic fashion."

"I am not trying to justify my actions or say that I am without fault," he said. "But I am not the hypocrite my opponents and some liberal media outlets are portraying me as."

Meanwhile, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington on Monday filed a complaint with the Tennessee Department of Health arguing that DesJarlais conducted an inappropriate sexual relationship with a patient.

"Tennessee law is crystal clear: Doctors are prohibited from engaging in sexual relationships with patients," Melanie Sloan, the group's executive director, said in a release. "The only question remaining is, now that Tennessee authorities are aware of Rep. DesJarlais' blatantly unethical and scurrilous conduct, what are they going to do about it?"

A spokesman said the Health Department does not reveal information about investigations until a complaint is reviewed.

DesJarlais in the letter called the relationship with the woman he had treated for a foot injury "completely mutual." He disputed her being described as a mistress in press accounts because he said he was separated from his wife until the divorce was finalized in 2001.

The woman is not named in the transcript of the phone conversation that emerged last week, and DesJarlais said he wasn't aware that the discussion was being recorded.

In granting the divorce between Scott and Susan DesJarlais the judge, Jeffrey F. Stewart, said "there were numerous indiscretions and admittedly on the part of each party," and noted that an attempt at reconciliation had failed.

The divorce became a major issue in DesJarlais' 2010 campaign against Democratic Rep. Lincoln Davis, who ran ads citing several items from the court records, including allegations that he once held a gun in his mouth for three hours and that he repeatedly pulled the trigger of an unloaded gun outside his former wife's bedroom door.

DesJarlais in the letter stressed a "strong pro-life record in Congress and history of fighting for values important to Tennesseans," and said he hoped voters would look beyond the issues surrounding his split with his first wife.

"It seems almost as if I've never run against another candidate ? only a 12 year old divorce," he wrote.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/desjarlais-denies-hypocrisy-talk-abortion-164905217--election.html

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World's highest skydive! Daredevil makes record supersonic jump

This story was updated at 4:51 p.m. EDT.?

An Austrian daredevil plummeted into the record books today (Oct. 14), breaking the mark for highest-ever skydive after leaping from a balloon more than 24 miles above Earth's surface. Add one more feat: Going supersonic.

Felix Baumgartner stepped into the void nearly 128,000 feet (39,000 meters) above southeastern New Mexico Sunday at just after 12 p.m. MT (2 p.m. ET, 1800 ?GMT), then landed safely on the desert floor about 20 minutes later. His harrowing plunge shattered the skydiving altitude record, which had stood for more than 50 years, and it notched a few other firsts as well.

During his freefall, for example, Baumgartner was expected to be the first skydiver ever to break the sound barrier, which is about 690 mph (1,110 kph) at such lofty heights. And this happened on a special day ? today is the 65th anniversary of the first supersonic airplane flight, which was piloted by American Chuck Yeager in 1947 aboard the Bell X-1 rocket plane.

"I know the whole world is watching now, and I wish the world could see what I see," Baumgartner said just before the leap. "And sometimes you have to go up really high to see how small you really are."

Preliminary results of the jump showed Baumgartner spent about 4 minutes and 20 seconds in freefall (a record without a drogue parachute). His maximum speed was 833 mph (1,342.8 kph), said Brian Utley, an air sports official watching over event.?

The jump's top speed: Mach 1.4 - faster than the speed of sound.

Applause and cheers erupted in a post-jump press conference as Utley relayed the good news.

About the only glitch during the jump was a problem with the faceplate heater in Baumgartner's helmet, which the skydiver and his Mission Control team worked on?during the hours-long ascent. They ultimately decided to proceed with the jump despite the heater glitch, and later Baumgartner reported the heater was working.

While in freefall, Baumgartner went into a spin briefly, but was able to recover and go into a controlled descent. He said his visor was fogging up during the dramatic descent.After minutes falling toward Earth, his parachute deployed as applause erupted from his Mission Control.

Roof of the sky

Baumgartner's mission ? called Red Bull Stratos, and sponsored by the Red Bull energy drink company ? also apparently set marks for longest-duration freefall and the highest-ever manned balloon flight, officials said. Project officials touted the skydive as a "space jump," calling it a "Mission to the Edge of Space."

The officially recognized space border is actually higher. Most experts generally regard space to begin at an altitude of 62 miles (100 kilometers), or about 327,000 feet.

One of the many folks congratulating Baumgartner today will be Joe Kittinger, who set the previous altitude mark of 102,800 feet (31,333 m) in 1960 while a captain in the U.S. Air Force. Kittinger serves as an adviser to the Red Bull Stratos mission and communicated with Baumgartner during his ascent from mission control on the ground. [Extreme Skydive From 120,000 Feet Animated]

"I couldn't have done it any better myself," Kittinger radioed Baumgartner as he descended under parachute.

The 43-year-old Baumgartner is a veteran thrill-seeker, having leapt from some of the world's tallest buildings and soared across the English Channel in freefall with the aid of a carbon wing. But he said today's historic jump should do more than just etch his name in the record books.

"Red Bull Stratos is an opportunity to gather information that could contribute to the development of life-saving measures for astronauts and pilots ? and maybe for the space tourists of tomorrow," Baumgartner said in a statement before his leap. "Proving that a human can break the speed of sound in the stratosphere and return to Earth would be a step toward creating near-space bailout procedures that currently don?t exist."

Liftoff for Red Bull Stratos

Baumgartner's 55-story helium-filled balloon lifted off from Roswell, N.M. around 9:30 a.m. local time today (11:30 a.m. EDT; 1530 GMT), carrying the daredevil aloft in his custom-built 2,900-pound (1,315 kilograms) capsule.

The balloon was originally supposed to take off Monday (Oct. 8), but that launch, and another attempt Tuesday (Oct. 9), were called off because of gusting winds. Even moderate breezes can damage the enormous balloon, which is made of material 10 times thinner than a plastic sandwich bag, Red Bull Stratos officials have said.

Some of the daredevil's close friends and family ? including his parents, Felix and Eva ? made the trip from Austria to witness his record-breaking leap, mission officials said.

"I know he is perfectly prepared," Eva Baumgartner said in a statement before her son's jump, which he had spent five years readying for. "I am happy that he can do this; he worked hard for it. It is his childhood dream coming true."

Baumgartner worked up to today's leap in a stepwise fashion, jumping from 71,581 feet (21,818 m) this past March and then from 97,146 feet (29,610 m) on July 25.

Follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and?Google+.

Copyright 2012 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/worlds-highest-skydive-daredevil-makes-record-breaking-supersonic-181843879.html

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Are The Vacation Packages In The Caribbean The Best Vacation?

One of the special places is Pristine, sugar-white beaches extend as far as the eye can see. What we find here? Sparkling azure waters glisten, fragrant tropical gardens explode in dazzling color and picture perfect sunsets ignite the sky. Meander along the shores that once provided shelter to swashbuckling pirates. Listen to the soft sounds of the tree frog s as they mingle with the high notes of a distant steel drum band. Yes, we can say that these are the islands of the Caribbean, where dreams of paradise become a blissful reality. Indulge at a luxury spa on breathtaking Antigua. Enjoy the feeling of coming home that waits in Jamaica. Enjoy international cuisine in spectacular Aruba, or immerse yourself in the history and culture of the Dominican Republic. Looking for seclusion and natural beauty of the Exotic Caribbean? Explore the emerald rain forests of St Kitts, or traverse the unspoiled beauty of Belize. No matter which island strikes your fancy, you have the freedom to do it all or nothing at all.
Why choose the Caribbean vacation?Some of special benefit that offer avacation packages inthe Caribbean is:

Great value with luxury accommodations .This mean a high-quality all-inclusive resorts define relaxation and nonstop flights from select origins to the Caribbean with a reasonably priced

Uniqueness Hispanic, French, Dutch and British influences intersect to form a vibrant Caribbean culture

Luxurious amenities with a Caribbean flair

Year round appeal with some of the best beaches in the world and a wide variety of experiences on many different islands offer activities to match the desires of any traveler. This is just some of the benefit of the Caribbean vacation. But is more than this. Many agenciesoffercheapvacations in Caribbean. Lets find some of these locations. What say people who were in Caribbean?The Tuscany -Very clean and well-run; extremely courteous and friendly staff. Hotel is basically set up as a condo complex where owners allow their units to be rented out by the hotel management if they are not in use and if they so desire.

Jamaica Inn - Even if we just spent something like 35 hours only at the Jamaica Inn during a business trip, we felt that each single minute of those was a refreshing, cool and enriching one. The place is wonderful; the food is very good with a quite rich list of wines, good snorkeling spots and great Spa. But can we talk about cheap Caribbean Vacations?Many agenciesoffer suchpackages.We can say that all-inclusive resorts are a dream for travelers on a fixed budget, seeking a no-hassle escape. Instead of sweating the details, chill under the Caribbean sun while sipping free cocktails, take a complimentary cooking class and enjoy day trips to nearby Mayan ruins. Or, go cheap caribbean all inclusive vacationswith family resorts and know that the kids will be happily playing (and grazing) from dawn to dusk while you catch up on the latest pulp fiction. And isn't that the allure of taking a vacation?The offersvary fromone area to anotherbut alsoseason.

About the Author:
By visiting http://www.gmsvacations.com you can find more details about the Caribbean vacation, one of the special vacations that you can have.

Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/Are-The-Vacation-Packages-In-The-Caribbean-The-Best-Vacation-/4211810

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Here's To The Death Of ?Personal Branding? On The Internet ...

I?m not exactly sure who made being a ?personal brand? a thing on the Internet, but I?d really like to sit down with them and ask them why they thought it was a good idea. You see, an entire ecosystem of people looking to make money has cropped up around this notion of helping people become a ?brand.? Honestly, it?s bull, and I?d like to see it stop. Why is it bull? Because unless you?re Kim Kardashian and have a line of clothes or stinky fragrances, you are not a brand. You are a person.

What is personal branding anyways? Here?s what the always trustworthy Wikipedia says:

Personal branding is, for some people, a description of the process whereby people and their careers are marked as brands. It has been noted that while previous self-help management techniques were about self-improvement, the personal branding concept suggests instead that success comes from self-packaging.

Got it? Personal branding is all about the person, as in it?s an extremely self-centered thing that doesn?t help anyone but yourself. I?m totally fine with self-help tactics, and I?ve used some myself over the years, but not in such a public way that projected douchebagness.

Using your own Twitter account isn?t ?work,? and if you feel like it is?I feel sorry for you.

Are You A Brand?

If you?ve ever asked yourself ?Am I a brand?? then the answer is no. You are a person. A person who breathes air like the rest of us, uses the Internet like the rest of us and maybe tweets some awesome stuff. You are not a brand, don?t need a brand management team, don?t need to take personal branding classes and surely don?t ever need to become a ?personal branding expert.?

Personal branding has become a topic for every other South By Southwest session and for a zillion e-books that sell for $4.99 a piece. It?s fake, it?s not productive and it?s actually holding all of us back from being actual humans. A book can?t teach you how to be yourself, only you can do that. Once you?re comfortable in your own skin and expressing the lovely thoughts that are in your head, you are not automatically a brand. You?re just you.

What?s happening right now is that people who have found a way to get a bunch of Twitter followers, make a fancy website and write a book are preying upon people who are self conscious and shy. You know who I?m talking about: it?s the ?social media gurus? and the ?experts? who have this fantastic brand and you don?t know who they are, but you feel like you should?because they?ve built that illusion. You don?t need a fancy website to get the job you want and you certainly don?t need a personal branding expert to help you set up an Internet profile to assert that you are indeed a worthy member of society. It?s all bull.

Who IS A Brand, Then?

Look, if your job is really about being you, meaning you?re in movies or have a clothing line, then you probably have PR people and a ?team? that handles your image. That means keeping you out of trouble, shushing you aside at the bar when you?ve had too many, and otherwise making sure that everyone in the world thinks you?re the bomb. That?s a crappy way to live but that?s why ?celebrities? make the big bucks. You?re not a celebrity, I?m not a celebrity, so we don?t need a personal branding expert to tell us what to do, right?

What has happened over the past year on sites like Twitter is that celebrities are breaking down the walls between them and the ?rest of us.? Ashton Kutcher tweets his personal thoughts, and just about everyone who has ever stepped foot on TV has a million followers. I think it?s a damn good thing, even if their ?handlers? are still involved. We?re all people, we?re all here on this earth to make a difference.

Coke is a brand, JLo?s butt is kind of a brand, but you are not a brand.

Be Yourself

Being yourself might just be one of the toughest things to do in the world. People want to be friends with everyone, have everyone like them and otherwise be who they?re not. It?s honestly the people who figured out one day that being them was fun who are successful in life. They?re weird, odd, loud, quiet, sexy, ugly, bald, rude, or funny and they don?t care what other people think. I don?t think that Box?s CEO Aaron Levie took a class in ?personal branding,? I just think he?s cool with being himself.

Folks, you don?t need a ?handle? on the web and a tagline to get noticed for the things you have to say or share. All you have to do is be consistently you, as difficult as that might be for you. Don?t let other people tell you what to be, how to act or what to share. Also, don?t be a purposeful contrarian to get attention either, unless that?s really how you are.

People are like snowflakes, but by making yourself become a ?brand,? you?re turning yourself into a nondescript pile of dog poo. Don?t do it. You?re worth more than that.

Be you. Be real. Please.

Make your own difference, not someone else?s. The book on ?personal branding? isn?t for you; it?s for someone who hasn?t read this post yet.

[JLo's Butt Credit: JLo and Flickr]

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/14/heres-to-the-death-of-personal-branding-on-the-internet/

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The VC firm that turned down Workday - The Term Sheet: Fortune's ...

FORTUNE -- Every venture capital firm has an anti-portfolio, or companies that they regret having turned down for investment. Some firms even publicize their lists.

For Norwest Venture Partners, the latest anti-portfolio member has to be Workday (WDAY), the HR software company that last week went public and now is valued at more than $8 billion.

Norwest's partners include George Still, who in 1991 led a $5 million investment into PeopleSoft for an 11% stake in the business. It would make Norwest the only venture investor in the history of PeopleSoft, which ultimately was acquired by Oracle (ORCL) for $10.3 billion.

PeopleSoft founder Dave Duffield would later co-found WorkDay with Aneel Bhusri, a former PeopleSoft executive who since had become a partner with VC firm Greylock. After Greylock financed Workday's first several rounds of financing, Duffield reached out to Still in 2009 to see if Norwest would have interest in leading a $75 million Series E round at a pre-money valuation of just under $500 million.

At the time, Norwest was in the final stages of investing a $650 million fund raised three years earlier. It wasn't really writing checks in the range of $46 million, particularly as available capital had become more scarce. So it passed,opening the door to new investor New Enterprise Associates.

From an asset allocation standpoint, it's hard to fault Norwest. ?The firm had sold a certain strategy to limited partners, and chose to stick with its knitting.

But, in retrospect, Norwest has got to be kicking itself. NEA's $46 million investment is now valued at around $722 million. Or, put another way, Norwest could have returned its entire $650 million fund with this single deal.

George Still did ultimately invest personal money in both the Series E and Series F rounds, as part of an agreement that also saw him join the board of directors.

"After the company decided to go with NEA , Workday asked if George would join the boar," explains Norwest spokeswoman Katie Belding. ?"We thought about it, and our firm was fine with this decision, because the relationship would continue to add to our franchise and our portfolio company value-add via these relationships... We think the fact that Workday is as successful as it appears to be will continue to be valuable for us going forward."

No doubt, but it's hard to think that value will exceed what Norwest could have generated via a direct investment. At the time of this writing, George Still's personal position is valued at nearly $40 million.

Sign up for Dan's daily newsletter on deals and deal-makers:?GetTermSheet.com

Source: http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/10/15/the-vc-firm-that-turned-down-workday/

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Farrakhan chides Obama, rips GOP and Romney in Charlotte

Speaking in Charlotte on Sunday, Louis Farrakhan had this advice for President Barack Obama:

Fight.

?Mr. President, you?ve got to realize you?re fighting for your presidential life,? the leader of the Nation of Islam told an estimated gathering of 6,000 at Bojangles? Coliseum. ?You?re fighting for your vision of the Democratic Party and the country.?

In marking the 17th anniversary of his 1995 Million Man March on Washington, D.C., Farrakhan was scheduled to talk about the economy and a Muslim ?blueprint for ending need and want.?

But with the Nov. 6 election three weeks away, the 79-year-old Muslim leader changed his mind, instead offering advice to the president and country, describing a United States still ruptured by race.

Then Farrakhan spent two hours hammering at racial ? some critics will call them racist ? themes.

To begin, the highly controversial Farrakhan accused Republicans of having ?overt? racist motives in their opposition to Obama, the country?s first black president. He attacked a political process that he says is controlled by monied interests and wants ?to keep America white.?

And while he claimed Obama?s Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, had lied about his real positions on most major issues throughout the first presidential debate, he also criticized Obama?s low-energy response.

He asked his listeners if they were disappointed in Obama?s performance, and hundreds of hands rose throughout the coliseum.

?Feels like your champion didn?t show up for the fight,? Farrakhan said. ?If you lose the first round or two, you go to your corner. It?s called ?adjustment time.? Every good fighter knows how to make an adjustment. You don?t get lost.?

He said he thinks Obama and his advisers worried about the president appearing like ?an angry black man.? The reasoning: ?You can?t go out there and beat up on a white man. You?re going to lose the white vote.?

He then turned his comments back to the president.

?You aren?t going to win any more white votes by being kind and gracious,? he said. ?Be a little black.?

Farrakhan?s injection of race into the presidential campaign comes as both parties trade accusations, direct and implied, of racist intent. Obama received 95 percent of the black vote in 2008, and more than 2?million blacks voted for the first time.

Some Democrats say Republican-led voter ID campaigns in several key states are aimed at holding down the black vote. Some conservatives say support for Obama by many African-American voters starts and ends with color. They say they oppose the president on philosophical, not racial, grounds.

Ron Christie, a black conservative who worked for President George W. Bush, told the Huffington Post that black people support Obama out of ?a straitjacket solidarity.?

Farrakhan did nothing to dissuade that support, accusing the Republicans of using a strategy to defeat Obama ?so overtly hateful and racist in nature that it has polarized America on the basis of race.?

The Nation of Islam minister has made a career out of such harsh rhetoric. He has been accused of fueling racial dissent, anti-Semitism and homophobia. He denied the accusations Sunday, saying he speaks truth as he sees it.

Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/10/15/3050729/farrakhan-chides-obama-rips-gop.html

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NASA satellite reveals some strong rainfall in meandering Typhoon Prapiroon

[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 15-Oct-2012
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Contact: Rob Gutro
robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov
443-858-1779
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Typhoon Prapiroon has been meandering in the western North Pacific Ocean over the weekend of Oct. 13 and 14, and NASA's TRMM satellite was able to identify where the strongest rainfall was occurring in the storm.

The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite passed directly above weakening Typhoon Prapiroon in the western Pacific Ocean on October 12, 2012 at 0741 UTC (3:41 a.m. EDT). At that time, Typhoon Prapiroon was a powerful category two typhoon on the Saffir-Simpson scale with winds slightly less than 95 knots (~109 mph).

A 3-D image of the storm was created at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. using data on Oct. 12 gathered from TRMM's Precipitation Radar data. The view, taken from the northwest, clearly showed the vertical structure of Prapiroon's precipitation and cloud heights. The strongest rainfall was found in the southeastern side of Prapiroon's eye wall and was falling at a rate of 50 mm/2 inches per hour. Thunderstorm cloud tops in that vicinity were as high as 15 kilometers (9 miles), indicating strong storms. To see a flyby video of the Prapiroon in 3-D: http://trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/trmm_rain/Events/prapiroon_12_october_2012_0741_utc_trmm_radar_animated.gif

On Oct. 15 at 1500 UTC (11 a.m. EDT) Prapiroon was still quasi-stationary. It was weaker, though, packing maximum sustained winds near 75 knots (86.3 mph/138.9 kph) and was located near 22.4 North latitude and 131.0 East longitude. That put the storm's center about 305 nautical miles (403 miles/648 km) southeast of Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan.

Satellite imagery on Oct. 15 showed that the cloud top temperatures around Prapiroon's eye had warmed, indicating that there was not as much power or uplift within the storm. Warming cloud top temperatures mean that the thunderstorms that make up the tropical cyclone are lower in the atmosphere than they were before, and they're weaker than before.

After another day of meandering, Prapiroon is expected to start tracking to the north-northeast because a ridge (elongated area) of high pressure is building in from the east and its air flow in a clockwise direction, will push Prapiroon around it and toward the northeast. Once it starts moving, Prapiroon's center is expected to stay over open water. However, the storm's western fringes are expected to brush eastern Japan later in the week of Oct. 15.

###


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[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 15-Oct-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Rob Gutro
robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov
443-858-1779
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Typhoon Prapiroon has been meandering in the western North Pacific Ocean over the weekend of Oct. 13 and 14, and NASA's TRMM satellite was able to identify where the strongest rainfall was occurring in the storm.

The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite passed directly above weakening Typhoon Prapiroon in the western Pacific Ocean on October 12, 2012 at 0741 UTC (3:41 a.m. EDT). At that time, Typhoon Prapiroon was a powerful category two typhoon on the Saffir-Simpson scale with winds slightly less than 95 knots (~109 mph).

A 3-D image of the storm was created at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. using data on Oct. 12 gathered from TRMM's Precipitation Radar data. The view, taken from the northwest, clearly showed the vertical structure of Prapiroon's precipitation and cloud heights. The strongest rainfall was found in the southeastern side of Prapiroon's eye wall and was falling at a rate of 50 mm/2 inches per hour. Thunderstorm cloud tops in that vicinity were as high as 15 kilometers (9 miles), indicating strong storms. To see a flyby video of the Prapiroon in 3-D: http://trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/trmm_rain/Events/prapiroon_12_october_2012_0741_utc_trmm_radar_animated.gif

On Oct. 15 at 1500 UTC (11 a.m. EDT) Prapiroon was still quasi-stationary. It was weaker, though, packing maximum sustained winds near 75 knots (86.3 mph/138.9 kph) and was located near 22.4 North latitude and 131.0 East longitude. That put the storm's center about 305 nautical miles (403 miles/648 km) southeast of Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan.

Satellite imagery on Oct. 15 showed that the cloud top temperatures around Prapiroon's eye had warmed, indicating that there was not as much power or uplift within the storm. Warming cloud top temperatures mean that the thunderstorms that make up the tropical cyclone are lower in the atmosphere than they were before, and they're weaker than before.

After another day of meandering, Prapiroon is expected to start tracking to the north-northeast because a ridge (elongated area) of high pressure is building in from the east and its air flow in a clockwise direction, will push Prapiroon around it and toward the northeast. Once it starts moving, Prapiroon's center is expected to stay over open water. However, the storm's western fringes are expected to brush eastern Japan later in the week of Oct. 15.

###


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-10/nsfc-nsr101512.php

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Moon rocks, chunks of Mars on auction block in New York

NEW YORK | Sun Oct 14, 2012 4:16pm EDT

NEW YORK

(Reuters) - Several lumps of Mars and the biggest piece of the Moon ever offered for sale were unveiled on Sunday in New York in what organizers described as history's largest meteorite auction.

More than 125 meteorites were being auctioned in the private sale, including an iron meteorite resembling a howling face that was found in the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa and a slice of the Willamette meteorite from the American Museum of Natural History, estimated to sell for at least $85,000. The 4-pound (1.8-kg) Moon rock was expected to go for more than $340,000.

"We cover a very, very wide spectrum of material," said Darryl Pitt, the meteorite consultant for Heritage Auctions, which is conducting the sale.

Some pieces were expected to be available for just a few hundred dollars.

"We wanted to make certain there's something for everyone. We want to be egalitarian when we're offering outer space," Pitt told Reuters.

Meteorites are priced for their size, rarity, beauty and provenance -- buyers are typically willing to pay more for bits of rock or iron known to have originated on the Moon or Mars. Lunar meteorites are particularly rare, he said, with only about 135 pounds (61.2 kg) of the rock known to exist on Earth.

"It is the oldest material mankind can touch, the raw ingredients of the planets," Pitt said in describing the appeal of collecting meteorites.

Other lots for sale included a large fragment of the Tissint meteorite of Martian origin that fell only last year in Morocco and a chunk of the Peekskill meteorite that was caught on video cameras 20 years ago burning through the sky before smacking into a Chevy Malibu parked in the town about 50 miles north of New York City.

(Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Cynthia Osterman)

Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/scienceNews/~3/_a4jukzu2n4/us-usa-meteorites-idUSBRE89D0FT20121014

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