April 2010 Archives
Blame It on Mr. Rogers: Why Young Adults Feel So Entitled - WSJ.com
Fred Rogers, the late TV icon, told several generations of children that they were "special" just for being whoever they were. He meant well, and he was a sterling role model in many ways. But what often got lost in his self-esteem-building patter was the idea that being special comes from working hard and having high expectations for yourself.
Fred Rogers, the late TV icon, told several generations of children that they were "special" just for being whoever they were. He meant well, and he was a sterling role model in many ways. But what often got lost in his self-esteem-building patter was the idea that being special comes from working hard and having high expectations for yourself.
Eleanor Roosevelt's Human Rights Speech
delivered 28 September 1948, Paris, France
I have come this evening to talk with you on one of the greatest issues of our time -- that is the preservation of human freedom. I have chosen to discuss it here in France, at the Sorbonne, because here in this soil the roots of human freedom have long ago struck deep and here they have been richly nourished. It was here the Declaration of the Rights of Man was proclaimed, and the great slogans of the French Revolution -- liberty, equality, fraternity -- fired the imagination of men.
The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America
July 4, 1776 (audio mp3 reading by John F. Kennedy)
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Water-Related Conflicts Set to Escalate
ScienceDaily (Apr. 30, 2010) -- Population growth, urbanisation, increasing pollution, soil erosion and climate variations are all reflected in the management and adequacy of the world's waters. The situation is particularly difficult in many developing countries, where there are growing concerns over escalating water crises and even outright water conflicts between countries and regions.
Duty and the Beast: Animal Experimentation and Neglected Interests
D. Benatar, 2000
From the Department of Philosophy, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
I take it that the moral dilemma many people feel about animal experimentation is that they value its benefits yet simultaneously recognise that these benefits are at considerable cost to animals. The question then becomes: Do the benefits outweigh the costs? Glib answers to this difficult question are frequently offered from both sides of the animal experimentation dispute. For many opponents of animal experimentation, the answer is obviously negative. For many animal experimenters and their defenders, the answer is obviously affirmative.
This study examines the relationship between use of Facebook, a popular online social network site, and the formation and maintenance of social capital. In addition to assessing bonding and bridging social capital, we explore a dimension of social capital that assesses one's ability to stay connected with members of a previously inhabited community, which we call maintained social capital.
Can Wind Power Get Up to Speed?
But for all the green talk and growth in wind power -- it accounted for 42% of all new electricity generation added to the U.S. grid last year -- wind still makes up less than 3% of America's total electricity generation. Even at current rates of growth, that figure is unlikely to change soon. The question is, Will wind ever produce enough power to satisfy America's energy needs?
College Students 'Addicted' to Social Media, Study Finds
By Rick Nauert, PhD, Senior News Editor, PsychCentral.com
American college students are "addicted" to the instant connections and information afforded by social media, a new study suggests.
According to researchers, students describe their feelings when they have to abstain from using media in literally the same terms associated with drug and alcohol addictions: in withdrawal, frantically craving, very anxious, extremely antsy, miserable, jittery, and crazy.
How Charisma Can Make You Hand Over Your Brain ~ Inkling Magazine
In other words, there is some reason to believe that when religious subjects listened to Christians they perceived as being charismatic--even if the speaker did not make a special effort to use persuasive words or tone of voice--they actually "turned down" the parts of their brains responsible for judging what they heard and, in Schjoedt's words, effectively "handed them over" to someone else.
In other words, there is some reason to believe that when religious subjects listened to Christians they perceived as being charismatic--even if the speaker did not make a special effort to use persuasive words or tone of voice--they actually "turned down" the parts of their brains responsible for judging what they heard and, in Schjoedt's words, effectively "handed them over" to someone else.
Provocative? Certainly. But if you happen to be an atheist, don't congratulate yourself on your clearheadedness just yet. What Schjoedt's experiment really shows is how our expectations about others' charisma (or authority, or just-plain-specialness) can modulate the brain's ability to process and judge incoming information. And we're all subject to those expectations, even if we don't all apply them to faith-healing Christians. Schjoedt has this to say:
If our interpretation of the results is correct, our study may be indicative of a general effect of stereotype interaction. Doctors, judges, teachers, officers, etc., who are recognized as having special competencies, may all benefit (or suffer) from 'stereotype' effects, and this neural mechanism may play a central role in the general dynamics of social authority and obedience as observed in the early behavioural studies by Stanley Milgram...
Separate truths -- The Boston Globe
It is misleading -- and dangerous -- to think that religions are different paths to the same wisdom
We pretend that religious differences are trivial because it makes us feel safer, or more moral. But pretending that the world's religions are the same does not make our world safer. Like all forms of ignorance, it makes our world more dangerous, and more deadly. False rumors of weapons of mass destruction doubtless led the United States to wade into its current quagmire in Iraq. Another factor, however, was our ignorance of the fundamental disagreements between Christians and Muslims, on the one hand, and Sunni and Shia Islam, on the other. What if we had been aware of these conflicts as of 9/11? Would we have committed 160,000 troops to a nation whose language we do not speak and whose religion we do not understand?"Letter from Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King, Jr.
A rhetorial analysis of the letter by Houston Community College System
"While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas...But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here." April 16, 1963
"Cast down your bucket where you are" -- cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded. Booker T. Washington
On September 18, 1895, African-American spokesman and leader Booker T. Washington spoke before a predominantly white audience at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta. His "Atlanta Compromise" address, as it came to be called, was one of the most important and influential speeches in American history. Although the organizers of the exposition worried that "public sentiment was not prepared for such an advanced step," they decided that inviting a black speaker would impress Northern visitors with the evidence of racial progress in the South. Washington soothed his listeners' concerns about "uppity" blacks by claiming that his race would content itself with living "by the productions of our hands."
Hillary Clinton's Speech to the U.N. 4th World Conference on Women Plenary Session
delivered 5 September 1995, Beijing, China
"By gathering in Beijing, we are focusing world attention on issues that matter most in our lives -- the lives of women and their families: access to education, health care, jobs and credit, the chance to enjoy basic legal and human rights and to participate fully in the political life of our countries."
"How It Feels to Be Colored Me"
Zora Neale Hurston (1891 - 1960)
first published in The World Tomorrow, May 1928
"I am colored but I offer nothing in the way of extenuating circumstances except the fact that I am the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on the mother's side was not an Indian chief. I remember the very day that I became colored."
"I Have a Dream" by Martin Luther King, Jr.
In 1957, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which organized civil rights activities throughout the United States. In August 1963, he led the great march on Washington, where he delivered this memorable speech in front of 250,000 people gathered by the Lincoln Memorial and millions more who watched on television.
Up from Slavery - Reason Magazine
Has there ever been a golden age of liberty? No, and there never will be. There will always be people who want to live their lives in peace, and there will always be people who want to exploit them or impose their own ideas on others. If we look at the long term--from a past that includes despotism, feudalism, absolutism, fascism, and communism--we're clearly better off. When we look at our own country's history--contrasting 2010 with 1776 or 1910 or 1950 or whatever--the story is less clear. We suffer under a lot of regulations and restrictions that our ancestors didn't face.
But in 1776 black Americans were held in chattel slavery, and married women had no legal existence except as agents of their husbands. In 1910 and even 1950, blacks still suffered under the legal bonds of Jim Crow--and we all faced confiscatory tax rates throughout the postwar period.
Has there ever been a golden age of liberty? No, and there never will be. There will always be people who want to live their lives in peace, and there will always be people who want to exploit them or impose their own ideas on others. If we look at the long term--from a past that includes despotism, feudalism, absolutism, fascism, and communism--we're clearly better off. When we look at our own country's history--contrasting 2010 with 1776 or 1910 or 1950 or whatever--the story is less clear. We suffer under a lot of regulations and restrictions that our ancestors didn't face.
But in 1776 black Americans were held in chattel slavery, and married women had no legal existence except as agents of their husbands. In 1910 and even 1950, blacks still suffered under the legal bonds of Jim Crow--and we all faced confiscatory tax rates throughout the postwar period.
Battle of the Babies ~ New Humanist
What Kaufmann is arguing is that the secularisation thesis, the assumption that modernity leads inexorably to a lessening of religious belief and a day when we are all rational humanists, is wrong - at one point Kaufmann approvingly quotes Rodney Stark and Roger Finke's view that this is "a failed prophecy". Further he is saying that there is something about our current form of liberal secularism that contains (here's another headline) the seeds of its own destruction. Since the birth rate of individualistic secular people the world over is way below replacement level (2.1 in the West), and the birth rate of religious fundamentalists is way above (between 5 and 7.5 depending on sect), then through the sheer force of demography religious fundamentalism is going to become a much bigger force in the world and gain considerable political muscle. Literalist religious conservatism is being reborn and we secular liberals are the midwives.
What Kaufmann is arguing is that the secularisation thesis, the assumption that modernity leads inexorably to a lessening of religious belief and a day when we are all rational humanists, is wrong - at one point Kaufmann approvingly quotes Rodney Stark and Roger Finke's view that this is "a failed prophecy". Further he is saying that there is something about our current form of liberal secularism that contains (here's another headline) the seeds of its own destruction. Since the birth rate of individualistic secular people the world over is way below replacement level (2.1 in the West), and the birth rate of religious fundamentalists is way above (between 5 and 7.5 depending on sect), then through the sheer force of demography religious fundamentalism is going to become a much bigger force in the world and gain considerable political muscle. Literalist religious conservatism is being reborn and we secular liberals are the midwives.
From pole-dancing lessons to baking cupcakes, modern woman thinks she can do it all. Germaine Greer's free-thinking female eunuch has been replaced by the desperately self-inventing 'Madonna', argues Charlotte Raven, who looks back in shame at the moment in the 1990s when her generation turned its back on feminism.
Top Five Tips from Grammar Girl
Affect or effect? Who versus whom? Lay versus lie? Ending sentences with prepositions and much more!
How to Use "Myself" and Other Reflexive Pronouns
by Grammar Girl
Today's topic is how to use the word myself. Grammar Girl says that how to use myself is among the top 10 or 20 questions that people send in to the show
Since part of the writing process involves editing our work, we need to know how to recognize complete thoughts and how to vary our sentence structure. This makes our writing more coherent as well as more interesting to read. Understanding the functions of parts of the speech in a sentence and their relationship to one another can be very helpful in learning to construct good sentences.
Grammar Bytes Exercises and Handouts
This website includes handouts, exercises and presentations to share with your students. The exercises include comma splices and fused sentences, fragments, irregular verbs, commas, pronoun agreement, subject-verb agreement, and word choice.
There are several PowerPoint presentations available within the Guide to Grammar and Writing. With over fourteen PowerPoints to choose from, you will discover how to diagram sentences, use apostrophes correctly, use correct subject-verb agreement, and identify the basic parts of speech.
Welcome to the new and updated OWL Exercise pages. The above link is intended to give you some background information, basic rules, and helpful suggestions about grammar, punctuation, spelling, sentence structure, paraphrasing, and writing numbers along with exercises and answers.
Literacy Education Online by St. Cloud University
LEO provides online handouts about a variety of writing topics. If you've come to LEO to find some online information that can help with your writing, then you'll find an abundance of information including how to:
*plan, organize and develop an essay
*research, determine credibility of sources, avoid plagiarism
* grammar tips
Once you've determined that online sources can be used, you'll still need to assess their credibility. The following criteria for assessing online sources will help you to determine whether electronic sources are both professional and appropriate for your paper. Keep in mind as you review these criteria that many are based on standards used for traditional print sources; others are clearly relevant for electronic sources only.
Become Informed About Plagiarism
When writers intentionally or unintentionally present another person's words, ideas, or work as their own, they are committing plagiarism. Most students know that passing off another individual's paper as their own is plagiarism. However, fewer students understand that accidentally including someone else's sentence in their writing without quotation marks and a reference is plagiarism, too.
Comma Splices, Fused Sentences, and Run-ons
LEO: Literacy Education Online
If you need a brief explanation of comma splices, fused sentences, and run-ons, then this quick reference page is for you! These three types of mechanical errors are created by incorrectly joining independent clauses.
This website includes over 150 interactive quizzes about basic sentence parts, verbs, prepositions, phrases and clauses,punctuation, pronouns, spelling and much more! In addition, clicking on the NUMBER immediately before the quiz's name will take you to the section of the Guide pertaining to the grammatical issue(s) addressed in that quiz.
