Change you can believe in...

The economic challenges we are facing are having a sad but sometimes interesting effect on our society and daily lives. While the daily newspapers we wake up to through the major label-run music industry that entertained us at night are being threatened with extinction (and some papers and labels have already passed away), many other institutions and industries that affect our daily lives are facing similar problems and restructuring (some of it overdue).

A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education analogized the problems of the newspaper industry with the issues faced by institutions of higher education (it is on the web at the following address: http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i30/30a02101.htm). The pay scale of corporate officers in every industry, the work of bankers and the financial industry, and the need for staff in every field are also being rethought and revolutionized. Perhaps most prominently, the auto industry and the views on the need to save the environment are also being rethought. The world is being reshaped at a pace that we could not have anticipated just a year or so ago.