The World is Flat. Chapters 5 to 9

Book Title: The World is Flat. A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century
Author: Thomas L. Friedman
Edition: Published with updates 2006
First edition: 2005
Publisher: Penguin books

Section: America and the flat world

After he has given support to "prove" his hypothesis that the World has gone flat, Tom goes on to analyze what's the position and what should America do to thrive successfully in this new world.

America has all the qualities to thrive, including the edge of being the most powerful economy and the right kind of people to do so. However, America is in "crisis", a quite crisis which is not being noticed but which is making them loose ground to other economies.

The people who will succeed in this world are those he calls untouchables. they are people who are able to adapt themselves to new situations, to update themselves often and quickly, always improving and always looking for new edges, thus they are untouchable because they never become obsolete.

He gives the example of a lady, who even though she dropped College and never went back, she went on adapting herself, always seeking new things to learn so that, the moment her job became not needed any longer, she would be able to give a leap before falling into unemployment. Thus, she was a great adapter.

America's problem is that they aren't educating their people to be that untouchables which they require to be. Their system is not good because of lack of basics; because they have too many lawyers and too few engineers and mathematicians. is no tjust that of course, but certainly is a problem in education.

He ends by saying that "this is not a test". America is loosing ground and ahs to wake up soon to the reality and start working for it.

Keeping my face off of Facebook has my girls all a Twitter

Article from: MercatorNet
Author: Erin Manning

A mom of three girls, almost in their teens. She keeps control over their use of Internet and e-mail, in a way which I think, is a great help for them to learn the right use of these tools.

They can check and write e-mails, only with her permission. The three have a common e-mail id and is linked to their mom's such that they can read e-mails only once mom has screened them and removed the junk out. They stopped using web-based e-mail because they were getting ads with dubious content, and Erin got tired of having to close the browser every now-and-then just when they were composing or reading an e-mail.

Ms. Manning says: "I know that part of the reason for the excitement is that they see me use the computer to write, to blog, to send email, to communicate. We set examples for our children by our actions, whether we mean to or not--but that’s something to bear in mind, when we consider whether or not a new Internet tool or technology is going to be useful, or a mere distraction."

Thus, she has decided not to join the Social Networking sites such as Facebook. If she doesn't do it, most probably her daughters won't be that much attracted to it, or at least it will be easier for them to stay away from it in spite of the influence from other places. On the other hand, if their mom was part of it...