For shame, indeed

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01172008/postopinion/editorials/the_killer_vet_lie_443219.htm?page=0

I read the headline for the Times piece but was traveling and didn't have the time to look into it more deeply. My first impression - even from the headline - was that it appeared to be lacking in context. It appears that my assumption on that one was correct.

USNews does a bit of a compare and contrast

US News and World Report provides a series of short vignettes highlighting the best of Europe, Japan, and much of the rest of the industrialized world. Great stories, fun to read, nice to imagine, not always so easy to implement - or likely to be effective in a heterogenous, growing, free-wheeling culture like ours. Here's what the report had to say on Finish schools:


USNews.com: Finland: The Secret to Smarter Schools

It's always interesting to hear of social successes in the various Nordic countries. But I usually see a degree of unrealistic comparison as well. Is the key to Finland's success really the choices they've made in public education? Or is it a homgenous culture in which teachers don't have to worry about multiple languages, a myriad of cultures, and the growing power of a counter-culture that scorns education and respect for authority?

Not so easy to fix those pieces. Considering the decline in Finland's native birth rate - and the increase in immigration (see here), we may see them looking our way for new methods to deal with integrating many cultures into one in the not-so-distant future.

All that being said, I certainly like the idea of elevating the social status of teachers as a means of correcting poor education:

Perhaps the most potent secret weapon in Finland's success is well-trained teachers. In 1970, as the country began to overhaul its system, it mandated that teachers for all grades must obtain at least a master's degree. Today, teacher-education programs at universities are highly competitive, in part because teachers enjoy high prestige in Finnish society. "The status of teachers is comparable to doctors and lawyers," says Jouni Valijarvi, director of the Institute for Educational Research at the University of Jyvaskyla.

Of course, how do you raise standards of performance to appropriate levels when faced with a teacher's union designed to protect current (vested) interests? Ah...for the simplicity of life in Finland...

She didn't "know" if she was "covert?"

USNews.com: Blogs: News Desk Blog

Yeah right. [scrambling for my bulls*&^ flag]. And we should believe her because of how straightforward her husband has been...?

Or perhaps we should believe her because she was so upfront about said involvement of hubby...?

Interesting stuff

Defector spied on Iran for years-News-World-Middle East-TimesOnline

There are quite a few interesting nuggets in this one:

A Revolutionary Guard commander in Lebanon during the training and organization of Hezbollah.

Asgari’s escape has provoked alarm in the Iranian regime. “Asgari is a gold mine for western intelligence,” said an Israeli defence source. “We have been following him for years, especially since the late 1980s when he was commander of the Revolutionary Guard in Lebanon.”

The possibility that he was recruited by Israeli Intelligence but believed he had been recruited by some other Western service.

It is unclear which intelligence organisation he was spying for. “He probably was working for Mossad but believed he was working for a European intelligence agency,” said an Israeli defence source.

The daring escape.

A daring getaway via Damascus was organised by western intelligence agencies after it became clear that his cover was about to be blown. Iran’s notorious secret service, the Vavak, is believed to have suspected that he was a high-level mole.

I guess the more important question will become just how much did he know about Iran's connections to foreign terror cells - and how recent is his information. If he's been operationally marginalized since making the mistake of pointing out corruption within the Rev Guards, his information might not be any more current than what Israel has been tracking already.

For some reason this one feels more unique than the sort of spy vs. spy operations that punctuated the Cold War years. Here we're talking about a deeper cultural/religious divide between entities - or at least most of us imagine that to be so. For an Iranian to defect to the West - outside his region, his religion, and his culture seems very unusual.