Margaret Thatcher - Hero or Villain?

Following a series of Year 8 lessons on Oliver Cromwell where Margaret Thatcher was compared with Cromwell for her ability to divide opinion, it was clear that there were many people interested in her, so here are a few articles & assessments which illustrate her ability to The Telegraph calls her 'not only Britain’s first woman Prime Minister, she was also the outstanding peacetime leader of the 20th century'. In the Daily Mail, William Hague (previous Conservative Leader and current Foreign Secretary) cited tributes ranging from former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to the leaders of Kuwait and Estonia and 'hailed her ‘moral clarity’, saying governments around the world could learn from her example'. However, a very different perspective is given in the Guardian and other more left wing newspapers and media outlets. A more balanced view is given by the BBC, despite criticism of their handling of the Wizard of Oz song in the charts.

Steve Jobs

Following on from today's assembly, here are some further articles about Steve Jobs that you may find of interest.

• RIP Steve Jobs - The article from the Onion's AV Club which refers to him as the "Designer of Modern Life".
• Apple's Visionary Redefined Digital Age - The New York Times' extensive obituary.
• Seven Lessons from Apple's Founder - from the Guardian
• A Man of Contradiction and Genius - also from the Guardian
• Has the iPod made us Anti-Social? - from the BBC, published just before Jobs' death

Finally, here is the video of Jobs' speech from Stanford University that was quoted at the end (YouTube link)

A Worthwhile Life

The word 'great' is often overused when people pass away (Ted Kennedy, Michael Jackson?) but a truly great man died this week that many of us had never heard of. See the obituary of Norman Borlaug in this week's Economist of a man who saved millions of lives. Post a comment if you think he really deserves the title 'great' or not.