Britain

Drucker on Education, 1969

by

About a week ago Instapundit linked this Wikipedia article about the higher-education bubble, noting especially the point that William Bennett predicted the bubble back in 1987. The post reminded me of some interesting and rather prescient comments that Peter Drucker made about education in his 1969 book The Age of Discontinuity. A few excerpts:

Resources and expectations:

Education has become by far the largest community expenditure in the American economy…Teachers of all kinds, now the largest single occupational group in the American labor force, outnumber by a good margin steelworkers, teamsters and salespeople, indeed even farmers…Education has become the key to opportunity and advancement all over the modern world, replacing birth, wealth, and perhaps even talent. Education has become the first value choice of modern man.

This is success such as no schoolmaster through the ages would have dared dream of…Signs abound that all is not well with education. While expenditures have been skyrocketing–and will keep on going up–the taxpayers are getting visibly restless.

Credentials and social mobility:

The most serious impact of the long years of schooling is, however, the “diploma curtain” between those with degrees and those without. It threatens to cut society in two for the first time in American history…By denying opportunity to those without higher education, we are denying access to contribution and performance to a large number of people of superior ability, intelligence, and capacity to achieve…I expect, within ten years or so, to see a proposal before one of our state legislatures or up for referendum to ban, on applications for employment, all questions related to educational status…I, for one, shall vote for this proposal if I can.

Dangers of “elite” universities:

One thing it (modern society) cannot afford in education is the “elite institution” which has a monopoly on social standing, on prestige, and on the command positions in society and economy. Oxford and Cambridge are important reasons for the English brain drain. A main reason for the technology gap is the Grande Ecole such as the Ecole Polytechnique or the Ecole Normale. These elite institutions may do a magnificent job of education, but only their graduates normally get into the command positions. Only their faculties “matter.” This restricts and impoverishes the whole society…The Harvard Law School might like to be a Grande Ecole and to claim for its graduates a preferential position. But American society has never been willing to accept this claim…

It is almost impossible to explain to a European that the strength of American higher education lies in this absence of schools for leaders and schools for followers. It is almost impossible to explain to a European that the engineer with a degree from North Idaho A. and M. is an engineer and not a draftsman. Yet this is the flexibility Europe needs in order to overcome the brain drain and to close the technology gap.

Read more

On Special Relationships

by

Foreign Secretary William Hague on UK-Pakistan relations at the 60th Anniversary of the Pakistan Society:

And my message to you all this evening is that Britain’s relationship with Pakistan is here to stay. What happens in Pakistan matters to Britain, and we will stand by Pakistan as it addresses the challenges it faces and build a durable relationship that we know will stand the test of time.
 
We can be confident of doing so because ours is not a new relationship founded on a narrow set of interests.
 
We enjoy a tremendous latticework of connections of history and shared experiences, embodied in one million people with close ties to Pakistan living in Britain today and the thousands of our citizens who travel back and forth each year to work, study and support projects or for simple enjoyment.

Yahoo News India:

The United States Defense Department has awarded a 42.3 million dollar contract to Lockheed Martin, one of the world’s largest defense contractors, to provide 10 upgrade kits for Pakistan’s F-16 A/B aircrafts.
 
According to the Daily Times, the contract has been awarded under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme for Pakistan Air Force (PAF)’s Block 15 F-16 A/B Aircraft Enhanced Modernization Program.

Aviation Week blog:

Given how opaque the Saudi government is, it is unclear what is prompting the latest bout of uncertainty. Among the top reasons government and industry officials cite is Riyadh’s unhappiness the U.S. did not support a Palestinian bid for UN membership. Another is that the recent turmoil in Saudi Arabia — with Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz named new defense minister after his predecessor died — has simply created too much uncertainty for the arms package to move forward.
 
Boeing has a lot riding on the deal — especially since it would keep F-15 production alive past 2020 — and company officials recently indicated it was still on, without projecting timing. It is important for Boeing, financially, too, since it has already spent money to avoid a production gap.

India and Britain – the new special relationship? – RUSI

Council on Foreign Relations:

In this Vanity Fair adaptation of The Eleventh Day, by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan, the authors explore connections between the Saudi royal family, the September 11th attacks, and the Bush administration’s suppression of critical evidence.
 
For 10 years now, a major question about 9/11 has remained unresolved. It was, as 9/11-commission chairmen Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton recalled, “Had the hijackers received any support from foreign governments?” There was information that pointed to the answer, but the commissioners apparently deemed it too disquieting to share in full with the public.

Clinton Cites Pakistan Anti-Terror Help in Bid to Avert Aid Cut – Bloomberg

68F on November 13, 2011

by

The Location: The front porch, Oak Park.

The Drink: Bourbon and ginger ale.

The Book: Twenty Million Tons Under the Sea: The Daring Capture of the U-505, by Daniel V. Gallery. A pal, a former destroyer officer as it happens, gave me this book with the highest possible recommendation. Rear Admiral Gallery was a salty character. He gives excellent and colorful and opinionated explanations of all aspects of the war against the U-Boats, with many anecdotes. A most educational read, and a page-turner. As of page 130/338 I can recommend it to all who are interested in such matters. If you visit Chicago, you can see the U-505 at its permanent berth at the Museum of Science and Industry, where it came to rest after Gallery’s men captured it.

We won’t get many more nice days like this one this year. Today is pretty much an aberration. I am expecting a severely cold winter this year, based on pure guesswork and gut feel, speculation about sunspot activity and its effect, contrarianism about global warning, general pessimism, and not much else.

(Below the fold, Gallery on the conning tower of the captured U-505, via Wikipedia.)

Read more

Thank you to all of our veterans, living and dead.

by

The Statler Brothers, Silver Medals and Sweet Memories

God bless America.

Just a picture on a table
Just some letters Mama saved
And a costume broach from England
On the back it has engraved:
To Eileen, I love you
London, nineteen forty-three.
And she never heard from him again
And he never heard of me

And the war still ain’t over for Mama
Every night in her dreams she still sees
The young face of someone who left her
Silver medals and sweet memories

In Mama’s bedroom closet
To this day on her top shelf
There’s a flag folded three-cornered
Layin’ all by itself
And the sargeant would surely be honored
To know how pretty she still is
And that after all these lonely years
His Eileen’s still his

And the war still ain’t over for Mama….
Silver medals and sweet memories