“Post” may be premature, but let’s hope it’s not. While the American economy may not be in a crisis, it’s not necessarily thriving, either. I wanted to start a thread to collect articles as well as discuss this issue. Here’s a relatively scary article about housing that prompted this thread. Read more »
I saw a Time magazine article, “How Twitter Will Change the Wolrd”. I haven’t read it yet, but I know that Mitchell (and maybe others) use twitter. I wanted to hear the value they see in using the medium and possible pitfalls.
Last Fall Atlantic Monthly published an article, How American Health Care Killed My Father” about the root cause of the high costs and relatively mediocre quality of American health care. The author, David Goldhill, is neither a health care expert or a conservative, yet his diagnosis and prescription for a cure center on the lack of market forces and increasing those forces into American health care. Here is a summary of the article: Read more »
Do any of you remember Josh McDowell’s Evidence That Demands a Verdict, a book written as an apology for the existence of God and the claims of Christianity? I had an interest in apologetics in college, but at some point in my life, I lost all interest in the idea of proving God’s existence (so much so that writing these words makes me feel a little embarrassed). I guess I don’t think one can prove or disprove the existence of God. Nevertheless, when I heard that Tom Ashbrook, a radio host for On Point, moderated a debate between Christopher Hitchens, an intellectual and atheist, and Rabbi David Wolpe called “The Great God Debate”–which not only covered the existence of God, but the value of religion in general–I was curious to check it out. Here are some of my general thoughts and impressions: Read more »
The Atlantic has an article, “What Makes a Great Teacher?” in their Jan/Feb issue that I thought others (mostly, Mitchell) might find interesting. There are a few interesting points (which I will comment on later), but I’m becoming disappointed in articles about education and teaching from these major publiciations, mainly because a lack of substance and/or I felt like I’ve read this stuff before.
I don’t know anyone (at least that I know of) that is formally a part of the Tea Party Movement or anyone that feels a strong affinity towards it, and I’ve been curious about it–how big is it; what it’s all about; and what caused it. Based on this NY Times piece, “Tea Party Lights a Fuse for Rebellion on the Right”, here are some of my impressions: Read more »
I didn’t watch all of the Academy Awards, but I did see the tribute to John Hughes. Based on the audience’s applause, I thought the response was a bit tepid. In any event, there has been a recent debate about Hughes at the auteurs site, and I was wondering what you all thought about some of the following issues: Read more »
There is a new documentary (12th and Delaware) about abortion by the filmmakers that made Jesus Camp (never saw it). In an LA Times write-up, Kenneth Turan quotes regarding the filmmakers’–Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady–attitude toward the main issue of the abortion debate:
Both women also feel strongly that at its heart this struggle, in Grady’s words, “has nothing to do with babies. Its about control, it’s about the power of women and women’s roles, what the purpose of the female gender is, the absolute core of the identity of a woman. It’s so profound and so deep.”
For me, personally, this is not the heart of the issue, and when I hear things like this, a variety of thoughts and emotions come to the fore.
First, on one level, this statement is foreign to me because I’ve never met someone opposing abortion for this reason. (Then again, maybe I’m just blind or incapable of picking this up.) Do other people sense that a majority of people opposing abortion do so for the reasons above? Do you actually know people like this? (I’m not disputing that some people are like this; I just don’t think I’ve met many of them–then again, it’s not like I have a discussion about abortion very often.) My overall sense, and I could be completely wrong about this, is that this is not the heart of the issue for most people who oppose abortion.
On another level, I think this is the wrong way to frame the debate–that gender roles is not and should not be the heart of the debate. If this were the most important issue, this would be a no-brainer for me, particularly for what the government’s position should be. (The government should stay out of the decision.)
The bigger issue–in a broader moral sense as well as from the government’s perspective–is the point at which we consider the fetus to be a human being. Once we decide that the fetus is a human being, isn’t the government compelled to prohibit abortion at that point–almost regardless of its effects on the individual fetus, women (or men) or society in general? (The one exception is when the mother’s life is in jeopardy. In that case, the health and viability of two citizens are at stake–and the decision regarding abortion could kill one or the other.)
With regard to the recent botched terrorist attack, President Obama mentioned that the problem was not that we didn’t have the intelligence, but a failure to understand the intelligence, a failure to connect the dots. I wanted to make several comments about that. When the President says that we had the information that could have stopped the terrorist, he makes it sound like the system failed badly. Indeed, many pundits and politicians I’ve heard reacted with alarm. One writer called for Janet Napolitano’s head. I want to make several comments about this: Read more »
If you hadn’t heard, someone put up a question on facebook, asking if Obama should be killed (with four choices: yes; no; maybe; yes, if he cuts my healthcare). Did this cross the line?
Some people have touted the internet as something that will improve the quality of public discourse in our country, but my experience with bulletin boards and blogs (comments) has not supported this claim. I would go so far to say that bulletin boards set up for discussing political issues are the worst!
What do you guys think? And, more importantly, what makes the internet not conducive to intelligent, civil discourse?
How Charitable Are Private Schools? is a post at the Atlantic website that presents some arguments for taxing private schools. Proponents of this view argue that private schools harm the public schools, so they should be taxed (at least the ones that don’t show they actually make significant benefits to the larger society.) The idea is that students that go to private schools take away significant amounts of social capital, social capital that would improve the quality of public schools. Read more »
I read this, a blog post on Ebert and A.O. Scott’s rant on the dumbing down of movie audiences and then this at the Atlantic website, which lead me to Who Needs Critics.
I think the question is a good one. Do people really value the opinions of movie (or other types) of critics? Would our culture really suffer if there were no professional critics?
Like the financial crisis, this topic overwhelms me. I really don’t know where to turn for a simple, reliable and relatively fast presentation on the issue. I hope others will post good links or write posts that help me understand the issue.
Here’s a Fresh Air interview–“The Politics, Power Players of Healthcare Reform”–that I found helpful. The interviewee is a Joel Cohn, a senior editor from The New Republic, so you know where his bias is. However, I thought the interview gave a good idea of some important issues in the debate. I’ll try to break down some of them: Read more »
“So what is the value of studying humanities?” That is the inevitable question that comes up whenever I talk about the value of studying the liberal arts (history, literature, art, philosophy, etc.), and I’m always dissatisfied with my response: “It helps you think better; you get a better understanding of human nature and human existence, etc.” These statements are inaccuraate, but they are vague and abstract, and people usually responds with a bemused look–or worse, the smirk that says you’re full of it. My dissatisfaction stems from the fact that I don’t blame them. My answers are vague and are not compelling at all–or at least I can understand how the listener might not think so. Over time I’ve struggled with a response that carries weight, but I don’t think I’ve ever done that. Again, I don’t think that’s true because compelling reasons don’t exist. I just think articulating those reasons in a way that would convince someone who doesn’t understand the value of the liberal arts is very difficult (or at least has eluded me). A part of me feels like the answers will never be compelling unless the person listening is already a “believer.”
This is one of the reasons I was curious to read the article, “In Defense of Liberal Arts Education”, at the Atlantic site. Unfortunately, I got the same dissatisfaction after reading her article (for similar reasons I mention above and also because I don’t know if I agree with her reasoning).
Others can share what they thought and hopefully offer more persuasive reasons for studying the liberal arts.
Everyone including–Tim Geithner, Lawrence Sumners and the President–are raging over the bonuses AIG paid to some of their executives. A NYT article, “The Case for Paying Out Bonuses at AIG”, explains why paying the bonuses may be a good idea. Here’s their argument in a nutshell: Read more »
The Atlantic blog had an entry, “Obama’s Grand Education Plan: Can it Really Work?”. There are several components to the plan (which I haven’t read), but I wanted to focus on the issue of merit pay for teachers. Generally, I agree with the concept, but I think there are really huge obstacles to making this work right (obstacles that may be insurmountable), and I just hope the President has a deep understanding of what he’s trying to accomplish. Read more »
The Atlantic website has two articles, “Resisting Kindle” by Sven Birkerts and “In Defense of Kindle” by Matthew Battles, discussing the pros and cons of Kindle, Amazon.com’s electronic book, which recently released the 2.0 version. On the con side, Birkerts seems mainly concerned that the Kindle will obliterate, what he calls, “the context of books.” (More on that later.) On the pro-side, Battles seems to say that increased access and democratization (less control of books by elites) trump any loss of context. Here is my two cents on the subject. Read more »
HB 444 is now in the State Senate. The bill “extends the rights, benefits, protections and responsibilities of marriage partners in a civil union.” After reading an Advertiser article I felt pretty confident that I supported the bill. After all, I wouldn’t want any religious group to create laws that will be imposed on the rest of society. It seems to me that if a new dominant religion emerges in the US other than Christianity, then Christians must be willing to accept certain laws that stem from that religion. I’m not comfortable with that, nor do I think that is appropriate in America. Based on this line of thinking, I feel that I should support this bill. If the bill doesn’t refer to same-sex marriage, but civil unions, I think that is another positive feature, thereby avoiding the debate about marriage.
But then I read an advertisement against the bill stating that same-sex couples rights are already protected. I wanted to know if that was true or not. Here are some issues I’m wrestling with: Read more »
There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.
Michel de Montaigne
Penny for Your Thoughts Reid: My Mind Where’s Mitchell?