News – Page 208 – Quixotic Pedagogue

1984 Connection: American Government Kill List

American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions,
according to officials.

There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House’s National Security Council, several current and former officials said. Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate.

The panel was behind the decision to add Awlaki, a U.S.-born militant preacher with alleged al Qaeda connections, to the target list. He was killed by a CIA drone strike in Yemen late last month.

The role of the president in ordering or ratifying a decision to target a citizen is fuzzy. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to discuss anything about the process.

Read the whole article.

October 6, 2011/by dpogreba

Big Houses and Broken Homes?

Fact of the Day

Psychologist David Myers sees this pattern of soaring wealth and shrinking spirit as “the American paradox.” He observes that at the beginning of the twenty-first century, Americans found themselves “with big houses and broken homes, high incomes and low morale, secured rights and diminished civility. We were excelling at making a living but too often failing at making a life. We celebrated our prosperity but yearned for purpose. We cherished our freedoms but longed for connection. In an age of plenty, we were feeling spiritual hunger. These facts of life lead us to a startling conclusion: Our becoming better off materially has not made us better off psychologically.”

–James Gustav Spaeth, The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability (2009)

October 5, 2011/by dpogreba

Debate Test for Correction and Revision

Debate Class News

If you’d like to revise the test for more points, you can download it here. Please attach your new responses to the originals and return both by Thursday. Make sure that your answers are thoughtful and complete.

The final version is due Thursday in class.

October 4, 2011/by dpogreba

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