Reference and education News

Here are a selection of brief news items from this week's paper edition, and possibly a few news briefs that didn't make it in the paper.

His running mate had a "news flash" for the media Wednesday night, and John McCain had one for LGBT Americans on Thursday: "Education is the civil-rights issue of this century."

We gave the Democrats grief last week, so it's the GOP's turn this week as we again "flASHback" on the news that amused and confused:

Apathy or approval of ?agenda?? In ?A lack of civic involvement? (Aug. 29 letter), Elizabeth Rhoades makes reference to an argument that, with newspaper reading in decline, ?there may not be any reliable mechanism enabling anyone to know what is happening close to home.?

Source: IRIN The last of Myanmar's cyclone-displaced have expressed anxiety over a government plan to relocate them. Some 1,800 people live at the 3-mile and 5-mile camps ? a reference to their distance from Labutta, the largest town at the southern tip of Ayeyarwady Delta.

John McCain, a POW turned political rebel, vowed Thursday night to vanquish the ?constant partisan rancor? that grips Washington as he launched his fall campaign for the White House. ?Change is coming,? he promised the roaring Republican National Convention and a prime-time television audience.

What will look like education in the future? Are we going to see a revolution in the education system we have built in the last 100 years or a dissolution of the same as new approaches to education and learning slowly contaminate our fast changing society? Photo credit: Stephen Downes AsGeorge Siemens writes: " ...don\'t focus on the tools and the direct application of the tools. Focus ...

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 4 (Bernama) -- Tan Sri A. Samad Ismail, who died Thursday of a lung infection at the age of 84, was much more than an outstanding journalist.

Sept. 2 and#8212; To the Editor:

BEIRUT: The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) on Thursday dismissed media reports which said it had plans to beef up its presence in North Lebanon in order to put an end to the "growing influence of fundamentalist groups" there, in direct reference to Salafi factions.