The countdown to the end of our story continues.
Only 8 more months until society has fully moved from the Industrial Age of the last century to the Knowledge Age of the 21st Century.
1.Trains and Environment Movements Converge.
Greta Thunberg, a 16 year old from Sweden, campaigns to save the environment by declaring Europe a “no fly zone,” encouraging people to take trains instead. 
The head of the World Wildlife Fund in Switzerland does the same. The connection resonates with millions of Millennials in the U.S. and worldwide.
Meanwhile, British magnate Richard Branson takes over the for-profit Brightline train in Florida and within hours a bond sale raises $1.5 billion for the new Virgin Trains USA, turning away another $2.5 billion from others wanting to invest. It is a huge sign of support for trains.
2.MOOCs, Other Fads, Now Dead
After a period of experimenting with new forms of education, many of them have faded or are now dead from lack of a pedagogical foundation and learning success. Remember MOOCs? No one will in another year.
For profit schools like Kaplan have collapsed; the Khan Academy has not replaced any classroom; and the Univ. of Wisconsin Flex degree has a disturbingly low graduation rate of only 10%, a step backwards for education.
3.As Societal Anxiety Continues, Teachers Ask for More Mental Health Professionals
Teachers in at least two states asking for better pay are also asking for more counselors and mental health professionals at their schools.
The demand comes as the societal anxiety, depression and panic crisis continues; the crisis getting a little more notice from Americans and leaders trying to ignore the issue.
4.Feminists Go Overboard
A new play is shown about the conflict between Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem. Friedan began in the sixties arguing that feminists should work with men, not against them. Feminists continue their anti-male gender war attacking non-sexual touching as somehow sexual misconduct with accusations against Joe Biden. And they voice a totally false claim that a single female scientist had an outsized role in photographing the first black hole in the universe. Instead, it was the work of 200 scientists, including 20% women, exactly what we would expect from the natural biological ratio of spatially abled females.
5.History anew; Parallel with 1800-1820.
NineShift has documented the parallels with 1900-1920. Now a new movie, Peterloo, documents the 1819 inflammatory rhetoric spurring on violence as the English society moves into the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s. Sound familiar? image: The Onion
