Current Events

Friday, December 13, 2024

I Robot, I Media



Q. How can we ensure that our development as moral and social animals keeps pace with our rapidly evolving communications technology?

A. By playing an active role in our media consumption, trusting reporters who demonstrate fairness and reliability over time, offering corrections when they get something wrong, and when we care enough--reading the original documents they worked from.




Monday, December 9, 2024

Don't Panic



Mere seconds before the Earth is to be demolished by an alien construction crew, journeyman Arthur Dent is swept off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, an alien researcher penning a new edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."  Do movie trailers appeal to our 'deep' or 'hyper' attention?

Douglas Adams cult classic may have been the stuff of Science Fiction in the 1970s, but one can't help compare his fictitious guide to existing modern-day technology.  Never before have we had access to so much information at our fingertips.  So why is it we seem to know so little?  

Isn't now the time to panic?







1) Which had the most impact on the way we get the news? The least? Explain.

2) Where Do you get most of your news from? Why?

3) What new technologies have changed media in your lifetime?  The future?



Wednesday, December 4, 2024

Believe It Or Not!

 


At its most extreme, bias will drive people away from sources they disagree with and push them to consume only media from outlets that confirm their existing worldviews. In the age of social media, this has become especially true. Because we often surround ourselves with like-minded people as our friends and acquaintances, our social media feeds will often reflect a shared bias. At its most extreme application, we create an echo chamber, or a situation where ideas and beliefs are amplified and reinforced through communication and repetition, around ourselves.




Monday, December 2, 2024

The Matrix In Me


You can see it when you look out your window...  when you turn on your television... when you go to work.  It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.  The truth that like everyone else you were born into a prison that you can not smell or taste or touch.  A prison for your mind.  More precisely the prison OF your mind.  




Prejudice.jpg
Implicit.harvard.edu


How do the outcomes of this test compare to similar tests on racial bias?


1) Which of these dolls is the 'good' one?  Why?
2) Which of these dolls is the bad one?  Why?
3) Which of these dolls looks most like you?



Friday, November 22, 2024

Paradox of the Poultry Pardon



 In just a few days, we will once again endure the annual spectacle of the President of the United States pardoning a turkey that would otherwise have been fated for the Thanksgiving table.  So this is a good time to ask why a nation that bemoans the bloated prison system and proclaims that "life is all about second chances" is--on the matter of clemency--one of the stingiest Presidents in the world?

1) How does the United States' rate of capital punishment compare to the rest of the world?

2) Is the death penalty 'Cruel and Unusual' punishment?

3) Which modern US President has given the most pardons?

4) If you were President who would you pardon? Why?

5) What can/ should be done to fix America's bloated prison system?


Thursday, November 21, 2024

Beg Your Pardon?!

Each year since 1947, the National Turkey Federation and the Poultry and Egg National Board have given a turkey to the President of the United States at a White House ceremony. Since then, presidents have been more likely to eat the turkey rather than give it a reprieve. A notable exception occurred in 1963, when President Kennedy, referring to the turkey given to him, said, "Let's just keep him." It wasn't until the first Thanksgiving of President George H.W. Bush, in 1989, that a turkey was officially pardoned for the first time.

For fifteen years through 2004, the turkeys were given to Kidwell Farm, a petting zoo at Frying Pan Park in Herndon, Virginia. The turkeys would receive a last minute pardon before arriving, and were then led to their new home at the Turkey Barn after enduring a turkey "roast" full of poultry humor and history.

In 2005 and 2006, however, Presdident George W. Bush continued his father's traditions but the turkeys were flown to Disneyland in California where they served as honorary grand marshals for Disneyland's Thanksgiving Day parade. After that, they spent the rest of their lives at a Disneyland ranch. A spot in sunny Disneyland seems immensely preferable to a place called Frying Pan Park.


Has President Biden kept this tradition ALIVE?

Tuesday, November 19, 2024

Full Disclosure


In Chapter 9 Brooke proposed that reporters aren't supposed to make the world better.
Their job is to tell us what is going on, so WE can make it better...

Would you trust them more if you knew more about them?



Video conferencing is pulling back the curtain on our private lives, as our friends  & colleagues finally get a peek into our homes. Correspondent Mo Rocca talks with designer Jonathan Adler, fashion commentator Simon Doonan, and New York Times critic-at-large Amanda Hess about what Zoom is divulging about us.

1) What can we learn about our reporters and celebrities by 'peeking' into their living rooms and offices?

2) Do you trust them more or less? Why?

3) What is in your 'Zoom' background and what does it 'disclose' about you?