Students in Brazil’s public universities are still whiter and richer than average, and much more likely to have been privately schooled. And taxpayers still pick up their tab, spending five times as much per university student as per schoolchild. But explosive growth in private, for-profit universities is at last opening up higher education 


CLICK AND READ THIS ECONOMIST ARTICLE ON BRAZIL'S NEW OPPORTUNITIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION 


Your thoughts?  
 
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Anais Nin says, "We don't see things as they are, we see things as WE are."  This is never as true as when we study history.  Since we are currently studying the 1950s, I thought it would be interesting to share this article about how the 1950s or selective NOSTALGIA about the 1950s informs our present political choices.  Your thoughts? Click HERE to read the full article (RECOMMENDED) ... a few excerpts are seen below.

“…In one sense, all of the nostalgia can be boiled down to a simple proposition: In the 1950s, most Americans and most Western Europeans had confidence that their children would do better than they had done, that they would grow up to prosper in a stable society with a growing economy. The collapse of this certainty is the prime cause of discontent among the left, right and center.

In the end, of course, nostalgia is a dangerous form of politics and a kind of lie. The fact that left and right alike are ambivalent about the 1950s, albeit in different ways, suggests that bringing that era back whole is not in the cards…

But understanding politics now requires an appreciation for the nostalgic roots of our current struggles. It’s not hard to understand the yearning of many of Romney’s supporters for past cultural certainties. Obama’s coalition is, in cultural terms, the coalition of the future — younger and both ethnically and racially diverse. Yet Obama’s core pledge is to a new social compact that provides many of the guarantees of the old one.

Thus the choice in 2012 may be, more than we realize, about which parts of the 1950s we yearn for most, and whether there is any way to bring back the best aspects of an old era while leaving the rest of it behind.”




 
CLICK HERE FOR RACHEL MADDOW'S ARTICLE ON EISENHOWER AND THE MODERN DAY REPUBLICAN PARTY

Rachel Maddow: In America Today, Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower Would Be Bernie Sanders in the U.S. Senate (Bernie Sanders is the only registered Socialist in the US Senate).  

After reading the article, and given what you know about Eisenhower's position on different issues, write a 300 word minimum letter to either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney as if you were Dwight Eisenhower giving them advice on the economy, the role of government and social welfare.  Post it as a comment to this blog.