For more than a decade, NewWork News has surveyed the world's news having to do with life and work in the revolutionary new world economy. Over all these years, we have not made a significant effort to distinguish between straight reporting and editorial comment.

Written by Gary Johnson, NewWork News each day is more like a newspaper or magazine column than a newspaper's front page. However, nearly every item is linked to at least one original story from somebody else's "front page" so as to enable our readers easily to examine the original story without deliberate interpretation or commentary.

Some NewWork News items are highly analytical. Several of these have been gathered together for presentation below. All have been written by Gary Johnson.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Getting a Millionaire's Mindset (Sunday, 8/31/08)
A million dollars certainly isn't what it used to be. Many people with $1 million in assets don't feel terribly secure and have to continue working. Nonetheless, if you believe that a million dollars is totally out of reach, it may be because of persistent earlier views of what it means to be a "millionaire."

Many people CAN save a million dollars if they simply follow these recommendations and stick with them. However, these suggestions may seem obvious, particularly if you already follow them.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: CFR: Daily Analysis (Saturday, 8/30/08)
The famed Council on Foreign Relations has been a comfortable place for major Democrats for years, but there are major Republicans on its Board of Directors as well. Most of these luminaries are too smart to be partisan, and if you're looking for radio talk show kinds of put-downs and shouts, you'll have to look elsewhere.

For years, the Council has provided information and guidance to policy makers, as well as members of the general public. You may already know all about that; but have you taken a look at the CFR's Daily Analysis?

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Poetry Everywhere (Thursday, 8/28/08)
Art and poetry aren't just for "highbrow" intellectuals. In fact, they seem to be related to something fundamental in human nature.

For instance, so-called "cave painting" can be traced back at least 32,000 years in Europe. It seems that there always have been people who have felt driven to express themselves by creating images. It's also important to keep in mind that virtually all man-made items in modern life have had to be designed by somebody, and some designs are more popular or aesthetically pleasing to millions of people than others.

Similarly, the artistic use of language seems to have been around about as long as there have been people, as well. Poetry was one of the first things that written language was used for, and, in fact, beginning very early, writing was used to transcribe artistically arranged words that apparently had been parts of oral traditions for long periods of time before that.

Is poetry dead now? Certainly not. Technology has made it possible for tens of millions of people to enjoy poetry in the form of popular song lyrics, including rap or hip hop.

Here's Poetry Everywhere from WGBH in Boston, the companion site to their television series on the subject.

But, they probably won't break your knees if you don't pay up (Wednesday, 8/27/08)
BusinessWeek's Jessica Silver-Greenberg provides evidence that using credit cards can be nearly the worst way to borrow money.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Environmental Teaching Resources (Monday, 8/25/08)
One cannot study environmental science without being interdisciplinary. In fact, it may be time to reexamine the various disciplines themselves, as well as the boundaries typically separating them. As the world changes, concepts of the world must change as well.

At any rate, the Environmental Literacy Council offers some useful teaching resources, but you don't have to be a teacher or officially enrolled as a student in order to learn from them.

Another reason to worry about global warming (Sunday, 8/24/08)
New research indicates that climate change could release enormous amounts of CO2 from Arctic soils which could greatly accelerate global warming.

Incidentally, the best evidence available indicates that five mass extinctions have occurred over the past 600 million years. Each has changed the direction of life on the planet. The last such event occurred about 65 million years ago when all the dinosaurs and many additional species disappeared forever. This catastrophe occurred because an asteroid struck the Yucatan Peninsula in present-day Mexico.

However, it appears that the earlier mass extinctions occurred because of a buildup of so-called "greenhouse gasses," accelerated by the heating of the oceans, which allowed hydrogen sulfide to come to the surface, because cold water is capable of holding more oxygen than warm water.

Incidentally, approximately 99 percent of all the species that have ever lived on the Earth are extinct, including ones that have lasted much longer than humans have lasted so far.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies (Saturday, 8/23/08)
Science and technology tend to enlarge the range of things we CAN do, but society has to decide what SHOULD be done. Government is a typical means by which society enforces its values, but new scientific and technological breakthroughs bring up new questions that require debate. Here's the EC's European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies.

Food irradiation gets a toehold in the U. S. (Thursday, 8/21/08)
Gardiner Harris reports from Washington that the FDA, tired of people having to worry about eating their vegetables, will start allowing some to be irradiated in order to kill troublesome microorganisms.

For many years, milk at room temperature has sold in European supermarkets and has been kept perfectly fresh because of irradiation.

No, it won't mean that your spinach and lettuce will be radioactive. And, keep in mind that sunlight is radiation and so are radio waves, so we're all bathed in it everyday. Electromagnetic energy is one of the four basic forces in the universe, along with gravity, the strong force, and the weak force. The latter two work only at very small subatomic levels, but hold the universe together.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: NSF and the Birth of the Internet (Monday, 8/18/08)
The National Science Foundation traces the development of the Internet on this site.

Incidentally, the Internet has been around for a long time, but became a popular medium fairly recently. In fact, while BraveNewWorkWorld wasn't quite present at the creation, it was one of the early pioneer sites, beginning in October 1995. Our NewWork News feature followed soon after, beginning on January 2, 1996.

You may be limited by bureaucracy without realizing it (Saturday, 8/16/08)
This BusinessWeek article says that anyone working in an organization of more than a dozen people will have to cope with "bureaucracy."

That's right, of course. Often people say that they like the work, but wish they didn't have to deal with the "politics." Problem is, "politics" is a natural consequence anytime even a couple of people work together to try to get something done. Only one person can walk around in a pair of shoes, and it's unlikely that two or more persons will have exactly the same needs or objectives at a particular time.

Good news for some American tourists, but bad news for the Brits (Friday, 8/15/08)
The American dollar continues to gain on the pound sterling, and the UK is fearing that this means that the country's economy is about to enter a recessionary period. A pound now costs $1.85, rather than $2.00 as it did very recently.

Another effect of the strengthening dollar is the price of crude oil. True, worldwide demand has plunged due to a slowing global economy, and it's also true that Americans are using far less gasoline than only a few weeks ago. Demand does make a difference. However, a strong dollar buys more oil than a week one, as well, and the dollar has been getting stronger.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Which College Grads Earn the Most? (Thursday, 8/14/08)
Will your career earnings be influenced by where you obtain your degree? Sure, but it may or may not having anything to do with your education. If you attend an "Ivy League" school, for instance, you may share a dorm room with a member of a famous family, and that can make a difference for a long time.

For those who are simply interested in learning, though, there are a variety of interesting alternatives, particularly now. Ideas and information are available from a wide variety of sources, including many that are free. It won't necessarily be the case that you will have to spend most of the remainder of your adult life paying off student loans.

Those who have extremely strong intellectual appetites are now able to become highly educated without ever enrolling in a college, conventional or online. Ironically, the very people that conventional colleges and universities are most interested in attracting may the ones who need colleges and universities least.

Will you soon be able to recharge your GM car? Really? Then, what? (Wednesday, 8/13/08)
Toyota is poised to replace General Motors as the world's largest automaker, and whether GM has a future at all or not may depend on whether they will be able to meet their 2010 deadline for bringing their rechargeable car to market. Development is on schedule, but many technical problems remain to be solved.

It might be handy right if you had a rechargeable car right now, while gasoline prices are so high. But, the car's long-term future, once millions of people are driving them, will depend on alternative sources of electricity.

At the moment, electricity production in the United States makes very heavy use of coal, which also is a fossil fuel that puts great pressure on the atmosphere and contributes greatly to climate change. Also, there is nothing to say that the price of electricity cannot reach really impressive levels, as has happened to gasoline.

Simply shifting from less oil to more coal would not solve our climate problem, although it might have short-term political advantages because we might be able to achieve a higher degree of energy independence.

Rechargeable electric automobiles will be a more interesting solution in the long-run once a major part of American electricity is produced through the harnessing of wind and sunlight.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: MAPLight.org (Tuesday, 8/12/08)
Do elected representatives sell votes? Er, well, no, not often, at least not explicitly in a a quid pro quo, opposite of "tit for tat," kind of way, at least not when somebody's watching.

But, here's the larger question. Is there a positive correlation between financial campaign contributions and the voting behavior of elected representatives?

MAPLight.org has been investigating this question and provides some insights about the U. S. Congress and the California Legislature.

Will you soon resort to bartering because all your money's gone? (Monday, 8/11/08)
Your money's probably safe, according to Mike Freeman in San Diego. Most banks are cushioned by capital, he says, and, even though more failures can be expected, they aren't likely to be so big as to shake the Earth when they collapse, as was nearly the case with IndyMac.

Nonetheless, the Fed says that the credit crisis is deepening, and most banks are tightening their lending policies.

Guess who may soon own the house next door (Monday, 8/11/08)
Not the person who will be living in it, probably, and not an American or an American firm either, according to Teri Buhl of the New York Post. A new kind of "land grab" is on, as offshore sovereign funds scramble to buy up foreclosed homes all over the United States.

The decline in home values combined with the weak American dollar makes a tremendous number of bargains available for those who have lots of money. And, where does a lot of that money come from, you may ask? Why, from greatly inflated oil, of course, and the U. S. is sending a lot of its wealth overseas in exchange for it.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Global Forest Partnership (Monday, 8/11/08)
This is not a good time to have fewer trees rather than more, because trees soak up carbon dioxide, the "greenhouse" gas that is a major contributor to climate change. The more trees, the better. However, forests are endangered over much of the world.

Hundreds of forest experts from around the world responded to a survey conducted by the International Institute for Environment and Development. The Global Forest Partnership site provides access to the documents that have resulted.

Might "government of the people, by the people, for the people" perish from the Earth after all? (Sunday, 8/10/08)
It wasn't just a rhetorical question to Lincoln, and it should not be only a phrase routinely memorized by elementary school students who barely understand its meaning now either.

When talking about China's economic boom, a mantra repeated by many Americans is that "freedom is indivisible." That is, increased economic freedom inevitably will lead to increased political freedom as well.

However, this may or may not be true. So far, it doesn't appear that anybody really knows. It may simply be something that Americans and others say in order to cope with their anxieties about China.

Despite the fact that China's ruling political party still calls itself "Communist," there is little about the country's present political or economic organization that would suggest that it's still "communist" in any way that would be recognized by Marx, Lenin, or even Mao.

Make no mistake: China's government remains autocratic, but it doesn't appear to be particularly "communist" anymore. Rather than leading to increased political democratization, China's breathtaking economic growth but poorly distributed economic prosperity might encourage the growing decentralization that already appears to be underway to some extent. Will it all lead to a "de-unification" of China? We don't know either, so stay tuned.

While China's long history doesn't immediately suggest that the Chinese people or their leaders intend to dominate the world militarily, few outsiders doubt that China intends to become the leading society in the world before this century ends--if it can hold together as a single country.

The Chinese have done it before, so they have plenty of national self-confidence. For centuries, China had the largest gross domestic product in the world. During the Tang Dynasty, which existed for several centuries before the year 1,000, Chinese civilization was highly advanced, while most Europeans were still living in mud huts, and the existence of the American continents was unknown to Europeans or Asians. It appears that the millions of Native Americans knew nothing of any of the world's other peoples either.

The spectacular opening ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing help demonstrate what the Chinese are capable of doing now, and probably always have been, ever since they invented gunpowder, the compass, paper, moveable type, and a long list of other things routinely used by the world now which amounted to major technological breakthroughs and the application of enormous brainpower. For centuries, Chinese culture seems to have encouraged innovation and ambition, and culture casts a very long shadow.

For years during very recent history, democracy around the world appeared to be in the ascendancy. In fact, a hundred years ago, most of the world, including most of Europe, was non-democratic. Now, in dozens of the world's countries, the people select their leaders through regular elections.

However, now that the world's economy is becoming increasingly troubled, the United States and the euro zone seem to be leading the entire world into recession. Moreover, "autocratic capitalism," first demonstrated to work quite well in tiny Singapore, seems to be the model practiced in major countries such as China and Russia as well.

Currently, the United States and much of Europe is concerned about what seems to have been a disproportionate military response in Georgia, once part of the old Soviet Union, but now a sovereign nation. Also, for several years, it appears that the Russian economy has been growing at about twice the rate of growth in the United States during its recent good times.

Moreover, former KGB officer, Vladimir Putin, still seems to be in charge in Russia, and there is good reason to believe that he longs for the "good old days" when the Soviet Union was a major world power and would like to see it happen again, but not necessarily with the old ideology included. At any rate "autocratic capitalism" seems to be secure in Singapore, and, more importantly to the world, on the ascendancy in China and Russia.

Is Russia intending to annex Georgia, and, then, rebuild the old Soviet system from there? Again, we don't know either, but how do you say "go to hell" in Russian? Maybe President Bush and various European leaders already know.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: The British Museum (Sunday, 8/10/08)
Critics will claim that it's because, during its colonial "empire" days, Britain plundered much of the world. However, for whatever reason, The British Museum is a treasure trove, an history buff's "Disneyland." If you can't visit in person, the Museum's web site can be an interesting "consolation prize."

Remember that they simply want your vote (Saturday, 8/9/08)
When political candidates talk economics, it's not necessarily because they know anything about economics, or that they're trying to teach or lead. Keep the candidates' motivations in mind. Jane Sasseen tells why what the current presidential candidates are saying about the economy "doesn't add up."

The majority is becoming one of several minorities (Friday, 8/8/08)
Persons whose ancestry is mostly Western European Caucasian are no longer the majority in many American communities. According to demographers, the trend is national. Sometime later this century, the United States will have no majority population; instead, it will be a nation of minorities. Here's more from USA Today on America's changing demographic patterns.

Incidentally, the reason that the United States has been dominated by "whites" of Western European ancestry in the first place is that the U. S. grew out of a number of British colonies. It will have taken nearly 2 1/2 centuries for diversity to overtake American life.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (Tuesday, 8/5/08)
It is said that there are more people living under conditions of slavery in the world now than during the great Atlantic slave trade of centuries past. In large part, this appears to be because world population is vastly larger now than it was during earlier periods of history.

Since 2000, the United Nations has maintained the UNIAP with headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand, which, given recent history, is a very good place for it. Here is the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-region.

Strangest "bedfellows" (Monday, 8/4/08)
The familiar expression--"Politics makes strange bedfellows"--is adapted from a line William Shakespeare wrote in his play, "The Tempest." Until very recently in the few prosperous regions of the world, people of the same sex commonly shared, not only bedrooms, but also beds without any implications of homosexuality. The concept of "bedfellows" was common and unexceptional.

Incidentally, you might also be interested to know that the concept of "Brave New World" also is from Shakespeare's "The Tempest." Years ago, when BNWW started, we were concerned that we might hear from the estate of Aldous Huxley's lawyers, so we checked it carefully to find that Mr. Huxley borrowed from William Shakespeare just as we did.

At any rate, it's difficult to imagine that T. Boone Pickens and Al Gore could have more different backgrounds or more different political ideologies and histories. Well, actually, they had a bit in common, so far as backgrounds are concerned. Both had parents who were federal government officials, for instance, and both are Southerners, but that's about it.

In the "strange" department, Al Gore was the 2000 Democratic presidential nominee, while T. Boone Pickens, a life-long conservative Republican, helped bankroll the TV ads which questioned the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee's military service.

Nonetheless, the two men seem to have common energy goals and appear to be in alliance with one another. Here's more from Kim Chipman of Bloomberg News.

This shouldn't be too surprising, actually. We are living in, well, a "brave new world." The Great Mentioner has been saying that former 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee, Joseph Lieberman, could give the keynote address at the Republican convention later this month. Moreover, Republican Senator Chuck Hagel is being mentioned as a possible keynoter at the Democratic convention later this fall.

If all this is puzzling you greatly, you may be lacking sufficient historical perspective or may have been relying too much on stereotypes and caricatures in your political thinking.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Missionaries in Colonial History (Monday, 8/4/08)
What role have missionaries played in the history of colonialism? The religious, at least, often have felt that they are saving souls while nourishing or healing bodies, particularly in distressed regions of the world. However, some local peoples have not welcomed them because they have perceived them as threats to the local culture or instruments of imperialism.

The University of Melbourne offers a collection of scholarly works on these issues in Evangelists of Empire? Missionaries in Colonial History.

If it looks like a recession and feels like a recession, how much difference does a technical definition make, to non-technicians, that is? (Saturday, 8/2/08)
To economists, it's a bit more complicated than this, but the popular definition of a "recession" that you probably hear about most often is "two consecutive quarters of negative growth." If you need this translated into English, "negative growth" is a fairly useless euphemism meaning "shrinkage."

Well, the economy got smaller during the last quarter of 2007, and grew a little during the second quarter of 2008, so is it in "recession" or not? Lots of people don't care about the technical definitions when so many seem to be struggling, but as Peter Goodman writes, the signs of recession seem to be accumulating. Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Climate of the Past (Friday, 8/1/08)
As we've pointed out several times, it's not important what former Vice President and Nobel Laureate Al Gore has to say about climate. If you're skeptical, what you really need to do is explain why the researchers responsible for those hundreds of research reports got the results they got.

So, okay, Earth's fragile, thin atmosphere has been getting warmer, but hasn't it been subject to natural fluctuations in the past? That is, haven't there been other warm periods as well as cold ones that we can't attribute to the actions of mankind, Industrial Revolution or otherwise? Yes, but...

Well, perhaps you should just consult the journal, Climate of the Past.