Global Cheating

April 18, 2010

I guess I’m stupid. During nine years attending colleges and universities, I wrote all my work. I was too cheap to pay anyone.

My BA degree is in journalism and when I read, “Rampant cheating hurts China’s research ambitions” (Yahoo news), I was disappointed at the lack of balance. There was no mention that cheating is a problem globally—not just in China.

Is this another example of China bashing?

I taught journalism and was an advisor for an award winning high-school newspaper for several years, and the student reporters learned to write balanced pieces even for the opinion page. Both sides of an issue should be heard even if the balance isn’t perfect.

Exams

Since Yahoo’s headquarters are in Sunnyvale, California, I’m going to focus on cheating in America to correct this imbalance.

ABC News/Primetime published “A Crisis in America’s Schools — How It’s Done and Why It’s Happening“.  “…according to a 2002 confidential survey of 12,000 high school students, 74 percent admitted cheating on an examination at least once in the past year…. Lifting papers off the Internet is one of the newer trends in plagiarism — and technology is giving students even more ways to cheat nowadays.”

Then there’s “High-Tech Cheating in College” about cheating at MIT, California Polytechnic State University at San Louis Obispo, and Stanford University. “Many colleges offer no comprehensive approach to minor academic cheating (the exceptions are institutions with honor codes, though few have them according Tracy Mitrano, Cornell University’s director of information-technology policy.”

Discover Education Chinese Style

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

5 Comments | America, China, education, media, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Cyber War

April 17, 2010

The internet is a battleground between countries and criminals and no one is safe. On April 7, 2010, it was reported that the Yahoo email accounts of 10 Beijing-based foreign journalists and the IFJ’s Hong Kong-based coordinator were infiltrated during March. Source: Scoop

China is not the only player in this Cyber War. The German Police and Intelligence Agencies hired a company to create Trojans capable of capturing traffic from Skype and SSL, and the recording industry wants the right to hack into your computer and delete stolen MP3s.

After a Chinese fighter collided with an American surveillance plane in April 2001, Chinese hacker groups cyber-attacked American businesses causing millions of dollars in damage.

“The Carders“, cyber-criminals that specialize in using a sophisticated and automated process to steal information from credit cards, have made off with billions.

ISBN: 978-0130332738

When the “Cult of the Dead Cow” gains access to a computer, they spy on you through your own webcam and microphone. Imagine what the “Dead Cows” see if that webcam is in your bedroom. Good thing they consider themselves “Dead”.

The American National Security Administration’s (NSA) Red Team is suspected of distributing malicious software across the web as illegal hackers, and they do it under the the protection of the law.  In 2008, an elite U.S. Military Unit shut down a Saudi-CIA Website that was seen as a threat to US security. Source: CBS News

China isn’t alone on this battlefield where anarchy rules, so why does China get more than its share of media attention?

See “Hacking from China – Maybe” http://wp.me/pN4pY-p8

Sign up for an RSS Feed for  iLook China

1 Comment | America, China, crime, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Controlling Opinions

April 17, 2010

Have the Tea Baggers in the United States been learning from China, or is it the other way around?

“Another strategy is manipulation. In recent years, local and provincial officials have hired armies of low-paid commentators to monitor blogs and chat rooms for sensitive issues, then spin online comment in the government’s (China’s) favor.

“Mr. Xiao of Berkeley cites one example: Jiaozuo, a city southwest of Beijing, deployed 35 Internet commentators and 120 police officers to defuse online attacks on the local police after a traffic dispute. By flooding chat rooms with pro-police comments, the team turned the tone of online comment from negative to positive in just 20 minutes.” Source: New York Times

The Ku Klux Klan in 1926 - Is there a difference between them and today's American Tea Baggers

Isn’t this what Fox Network’s Glenn Beck, then Rush Limbaugh, who is heard on more than 600 radio stations, have been doing for years. Filling the airwaves with their opinions controlling what people hear and think. The American Tea Baggers are doing the same thing with the same results—behavior control.

Is America really different from China? See American Hypocrisy http://wp.me/pN4pY-6

Sign up for an RSS Feed for  iLook China

 

1 Comment | America, China, media, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Where are the Parents – Part 4/4

April 14, 2010

Obesity and diabetes among American children is an epidemic. Many children and teens are not eating nutritious, home cooked meals. Instead, they are surviving off Coke, Pepsi, French fries and fast food. I often had kids come into my class after lunch with sixty-four ounce Cokes. Their speech would be slurred; their eyes glazed. Research shows that too much sugar messes with long-term memory and the area of the brain that solves problems.

School Library

Many American kids cannot find the family they need at home, so they find one on the streets. In Los Angeles, there are one-hundred-thousand kids that belong to street gangs. Other major cities also have street gangs. Street gangs become the family of choice when parents are not there or not talking. Drug use among teens is also a problem leading to depression and low self-esteem. This may result in decreased interest, negative attitude, drop in grades, many absences, truancy, and discipline problems.

When we pick our daughter up from school, we see the ratty dressed kids on their skateboards hanging out by the graffiti covered walls in the mall parking lot. Our daughter says many of the kids she knows at her high school get drunk regularly and smoke.

Return to Where are the Parents – Part 3 or start with Part 1

_______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

Subscribe to “iLook China”!
Sign up for an E-mail Subscription at the top of this page, or click on the “Following” tab in the WordPress toolbar at the top of the screen.

About iLook China

Leave a Comment » | America, American culture, China, Chinese Culture, education, family values, parenting | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Where are the Parents – Part 3/4

April 14, 2010

Obesity and diabetes among American children is an epidemic. Many children and teens are not eating nutritious, home cooked meals. Instead, they are surviving off Coke, Pepsi, French fries and fast food. I often had kids come into my class after lunch with sixty-four ounce Cokes. Their speech would be slurred; their eyes glazed. Research shows that too much sugar messes with long-term memory and the area of the brain that solves problems.

Teen drug abuse

Many American kids cannot find the family they need at home, so they find one on the streets. In Los Angeles, there are one-hundred-thousand kids that belong to street gangs. Other major cities also have street gangs. Street gangs become the family of choice when parents are not there or not talking. Drug use among teens is also a problem leading to depression and low self-esteem. This may result in decreased interest, negative attitude, drop in grades, many absences, truancy, and discipline problems.

When we pick our daughter up from school, we see the ratty dressed kids on their skateboards hanging out by the graffiti covered walls in the mall parking lot. Our daughter says many of the kids she knows at her high school get drunk regularly and smoke.

Continued in Where are the Parents – Part 4 or return to Part 2

_______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

Subscribe to “iLook China”!
Sign up for an E-mail Subscription at the top of this page, or click on the “Following” tab in the WordPress toolbar at the top of the screen.

About iLook China

Leave a Comment » | America, American culture, China, Chinese Culture, education | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »