Catching Up

In going over my blog posts, and comparing them to the calendar of topics, I see that I am missing several posts.  I hope to catch up here, & call myself "up to date" on them all! 

Natiolism, Empire, & Monarchy - I chose to look at the rise of the middle class & got off on a tangent about what constitutes class standing today in America!  An interesting concept!  In Wikipedia, I found this chart:

3 opinions from 3 studies:

Dennis Gilbert, 2002

William Thompson & Joseph Hickey, 2005

Leonard Beeghley, 2004

Upper middle class^[1] (15%)  Highly educated (often with graduate degrees), most commonly salaried, professionals and middle management with large work autonomy

Upper middle class^[1] (15%)  Highly educated (often with graduate degrees) professionals & managers with household incomes varying from the high 5-figure range to commonly above $100,000

Middle class (plurality/majority?; ca. 46%)  College educated workers with incomes considerably above-average incomes and compensation; a man making $57,000 and a woman making $40,000 may be typical.

Lower middle class (30%)    Semi-professionals and craftsmen with a roughly average standard of living. Most have some college education and are white collar.

Lower middle class (32%)    Semi-professionals and craftsman with some work autonomy; household incomes commonly range from $35,000 to $75,000. Typically, some college education.

 Interesting concept, & a view to change through education.  I wonder how e-educaiton will fit into this matrix in the future?!

Enlightenment Knowledge Media - Again from Wikipedia: 
"The Invisible College was a precursor to the Royal Society of the United Kingdom. It consisted of a group of natural philosophers (scientists) including Robert Boyle, John Wilkins, John Wallis, John Evelyn, Robert Hooke, Christopher Wren and William Petty. In letters in 1646 and 1647, Boyle refers to "our invisible college" or "our philosophical college". The society's common theme was to acquire knowledge through experimental investigation.^[1] 
"... The term now refers mainly to the free transfer of thought and technical expertise, usually carried out without the establishment of designated facilities or institutional authority, spread by a loosely connected system of word-of-mouth referral or localized bulletin-board system, and supported through barter (i.e. trade of knowledge or services) or apprenticeship."

This speaks directly to the newst trend in self-education, and reminds me of Dr. Burton's blog about our class in his Academic Evolution blog.  If you go read his blog, be sure to also read all the cool blogs he cites - many are fascinating & insightful!  It also answers my friends's delema of how to gain an education without being able to attend college!

Democracy and the Social Contract - I was really surprised to read about the many different forms of democracy!  I didn't know that there was so many!  I suppose that is the "typical" American view - our way is the only way??  Isn't education wonderful!?!

"Democracy is a political form of government in which governing power is derived from the people, either by direct referendum (direct democracy) or by means of elected representatives of the people (representative democracy).^[1]"  The various forms are:  Representative democracy, Parliamentary democracy,  Liberal democracy,  Constitutional democracy, Direct democracy,  Parpolity,  Social democracy,  anarchists, Iroquois  participatory democracy, "democracy without elections" or sortition, Consensus democracy, supranational, and Cosmopolitan democracy. 

I am truly grateful to be a citizen of the United States, where we have a representative democracy, voted by the people.  Our only problem is getting the info to the people so they can choose wisely!  There HAS to be a better way than the current system (although it is getting better ... slowly!)

Mormonism - According to the website, the new.LDS.org site will become the official LDS.org!  No more putting it off, we need to discover the new web site, as it will become the only web site soon!

I especially like the "Find a Meetinghouse" map.  even though Google Maps still shows my neighborhood as a developer's scratch, it dropped my address in the correct place.  However, it does not show our church building at all!  It links to the correct ward, but doesn't drop a pin on the map at all (although it does track the view to the correct place).  I like also that you can add to your map: temples, institutes, family services, & more!

Another feature I really like is the ward roster.  I can go online at home & update my information, correct misspellings or address goofs, upload a picture, print a ward roster, etc.  It would be wonderful if I could also filter the roster (for example, to show Scout families), but maybe that will come in time!

Either they still have some refining to do yet, or I need to do a lot more wandering around on the web site still.  My calling is in the Scouting program, & while I noted a link on the home menu to "Serving in the Church" it just defaults back to the home page.