Current Events Presentation – Seminar Slideshow – printable Meeting Notice
Third Saturday Seminar 2010-2011
Return of the Elders, Unleash your Wisdom
Session 3A
January 22, 2010 9:30AM til 10:45AM*
Room B-102, Lone Star College – Montgomery
3200 College Park Drive – Conroe, TX – 77384 – 936.273.7000
*This is an abbreviated session to allow members
to participate in the A.L.L. Open House which starts at 11:00AM in The Commons
“Dealing With Bad News”
The ALL Spring class schedule is now linked on this page. You can see the course information and mark your calendars. And, I got my Spring ALL Schedule in the mail. The Third Saturday Seminar is on page 13 Political Science.
I wasn’t fooling when I said we would not meet in January, but low and behold, when I looked at our listing in the catalog I saw that, somehow, we were scheduled to have a class this Saturday anyway. I talked to Donna about it and we decided to go ahead and do a “LITE” session from 9:30 – 10:45 AM so everybody could thengo over to the Commons by 11:00 AM for the A.L.L. Open Houseto check into the new course offerings and talk to the
I am told that the plan was to encourage people to enroll on line. I am also told that the process has been problematic. May I suggest you try again, but even if you are not successful,come to the The Saturday Seminar anyway. We probably won’t have a class list; but don’t let that keep you away. Come and participate. Apparently it is next to impossible to let the new people know that there wasn’t a class planned, so, we go ahead and do it, anyway. In part it will be an opportunity to introduce the Subject for February, “The Cosmic War Revisited.”
More information about Lone Star College and A.L.L.:
Academy for Lifelong Learning
A.L.L. Classes
Map of campus and parking
Our subject, after a brief Current Events, will be “Dealing With Bad News.” which will really be a continuation of current events, that is recent events.
We will lead off by reviewing the PBS Newshour discussion from Monday, 10 January. I encourage you to read through and/or listen to the material at the following link.
Do you agree (or disagree) with any of the commentators?
Is there anything from their discourses that is particularly enlightening or that could be absorbed into our culture that would lessen the likelihood of future “bad news?”
Arizona Attack Puts Power of Political Rhetoric Back in the Spotlight PBS NewsHour 1/10/11
Excerpt:
JIM LEHRER:President Obama himself once urged on followers during the 2008 campaign with a quip, “If they bring a knife to a fight, we bring a gun.”
He has not addressed the issue of political rhetoric since Saturday, but he did say today he wants to make sure that, out of this tragedy, we can come together as a stronger nation.
For more on the power of words, here now areShields and Brooks, syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks, plusBeverly Gage, professor of American history at Yale University, andKathleen Hall Jamieson, professor of communication and director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
First, David, do you believe the Tucson sheriff was right to suggest there was a connection between the Tucson shootings and vitriolic political speech?
DAVID BROOKS:So far, there’s no — absolutely no evidence to that. I think there’s evidence to the other side.
If you look at what Jared Loughner, do — we don’t know much about him, but we know a few things about him. One, that he made these videos which really described an attempt, and a very confused attempt, by an apparently mentally ill person to try to make sense of their lives and try to make sense of the categories of thought.
It’s all about categories and currencies of thought and grammar of thought and the government trying to control thoughts. And so the evidence that we do have suggests a person who is — thinks the government is coming in and taking over his thoughts. It suggests, if there is any evidence leading in any direction, that he’s a person suffering from an illness, who is far removed from politics as we normally understand it.
And in the world he inhabits, I think he was — the evidence would suggest so far that he was completely removed from the world of normal politics, from the world of civility, incivility or any that stuff.
So, I think most of the rhetoric and most of the arguments that have been made about civility, as, God knows I’m in favor of it, but it’s completely not germane to the tragedy in Tucson.
Here is an NPR article that has bearing to the discussion:
Fame Through Assassination: A Secret Service Study,by Alix Spiegel, 1/14/11
It’s well known that in March 1981, John Hinckley attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan. What is not well known is that several years later, the life of President Reagan and the life of his vice president, George H.W. Bush, were threatened again — in fact, not just once.
“In the space of 18 months, four situations came to the attention of the Secret Service,” says Robert Fein, who in the mid-1980s worked with the Secret Service as a psychologist. In two of these incidents, he says, people with weapons and an intent to kill appeared at public events. In the two other incidents, the would-be assassins were intercepted before the events. Ultimately, all four cases were prosecuted. Two were convicted, and two were sent to psychiatric facilities, Fein says, though the government didn’t exactly advertise it.
“These were not stories that hit the news, but they were situations that caused great concern for protectors,” he says. “So after these incidents, the Secret Service leadership got together and said, ‘We really would like to know more about the behaviors of these people. “
Are we being rational or rationalizing?
Majority doesn’t blame rhetoric for Giffords shooting, Reuters, 1/11/11
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A majority of Americans reject the view that heated political rhetoric was a factor in the weekend shootings in Arizona which killed six and critically wounded a congresswoman, a CBS News said on Tuesday.
Since the Saturday incident in which Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords was shot at point-blank range, various politicians and commentators have said a climate in which strong language and ideological polarization is common may have contributed to the attack.
Some of the analysts cited anti-government statements from the man arrested in the shooting, Jared Lee Loughner, as support for that view.
But CBS said its nationwide telephone poll found that, “57 percent of respondents said the harsh political tone had nothing to do with the shooting, compared to 32 percent who felt it did.”
Rejection of a link was strongest among Republicans, 69 percent of whom felt harsh rhetoric was not related to the attack, while 19 percent thought it played a part.
Among Democrats 49 percent placed no blame on the heated political tone against 42 percent who did. Among independents the split was 56 percent to 33 percent, CBS said.
It said its poll of 673 adults had a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.
(Reporting by Jerry Norton; Editing by Jackie Frank)
For Extra Credit:
‘Minds on the Edge’ Explores Public Policy Hurdles of Mental IllnessPBS NewsHour 1/18/11
It’s about the paradoxes of public policy and mental illness
A Current Event:
Tunisia’s Days-Old Government Shows Cracks,NPR 1/18/11
Tunisia’s newly formed unity government showed cracks Tuesday after a handful of ministers abruptly quit and an opposition party threatened to withdraw, moves that could further destabilize the North African nation days after fiery street protests toppled the country’s long-time leader.
…
The political pressure that brought down Ben Ali after 23 years in power continued Tuesday as hundreds of demonstrators massed in the capital, Tunis. Riot police in shielded helmets pummeled and kicked a protester and fired tear gas grenades into the crowd as protesters demanded that the Cabinet be purged of the old guard that served Ben Ali.
“I am afraid that our revolution will be stolen from me and my people. The people are asking for freedoms and this new government is not. They are the ones who oppressed the people for 22 years,” said Ines Mawdud, a 22-year-old student among protesters at the demonstration.
…
Tunisian officials said Monday that nearly 80 civilians have died since the unrest that began weeks ago and has spread to other parts of the region.
Apparently inspired by events in Tunisia, an Egyptian man set himself ablaze outside the prime minister’s office in central Cairo on Tuesday — the second such incident in the capital in as many days and a day after self-immolations in Mauritania and Algeria.
Initial reports said the man in Cairo, identified as lawyer Mohammed Farouq Mohammed el-Sayed, was protesting what he claimed to be the failure of police to find his long missing teenage daughter.
Matook Al-Faleh, a political science professor in Saudi Arabia, told NPR that Tunisia and other Arab nations share some of the same problems. “There is some kind of similarity, you know. For example, unemployment here [and] there is no participation here, no accountability for the government — all Arab countries,” he noted. Faleh said he has created a Facebook page where he has urged Tunisians to avoid violence and instead use the courts to hold their leaders to account.
But other experts believe it is incorrect to cast unrest in Tunisia as part of a wider movement in the Arab world.
“It’s important to avoid thinking that the circumstances of one country are automatically replicated in another, even neighboring, country,” British Foreign Minister William Hague told BBC Radio Tuesday during a visit to Australia.
Review for the February Meeting,“The Cosmic War Revisited“
Come, join the discussion! Let’s see if there is hope!
Public Service Announcements:
1. The old Coffee Pot is dead
And, we haven’t had anybody volunteer to become the next “Director of Coffee Services” so for this next meeting may we suggest that there are three excellent sources of very good coffee not far the college.
* Starbucks on the north side of Hwy 242 just east of Woodforest Bank.
* Caffe’ Diem and/or Brooklyn Cafe, both on the south side in the College Park Plaza shopping center.
* There is also a McDonald’s on the south side east of the shopping center and next to the Tradition Bank.
I will continue to bring donuts.
2. The ALL Open House is Saturday January 22nd, 2011 from 11 am – 1 pm in the Commons(this is why we will finish at 10:45 am.)
Curt Gibby
Director, Third Saturday Seminar
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