Torture!

Nice, light reading for your Spring Break:
Jane Mayer: "Whatever It Takes" ("Presence", pg. 252);
John Yoo: "With 'All Necessary and Appropriate Force'" ("Presence", pg. 275); and this article from the March 30 Washington Post suggesting that torture in one famous case did not yield any important results.

Divorce American Style

In Barbara Dafoe Whitehead's "The Making of a Divorce Culture," the author makes an interesting statement:
"Just as no patient would have designed today's system of health care, so no child would have chosen today's culture of divorce."
Your task here: design a system of divorce that you consider fair.
For example, would you make it more difficult or easier to end a marriage? Start a marriage?
Would you build in any protections for children? The spouse who earns less? The spouse who earns more?
Blog away.

"The Great Santini"

Chapter 2 of Pat Conroy's novel, "The Great Santini," opens with the Meecham family waiting for their father to return from a long deployment overseas. The movie includes the scene, too.
Pick out one difference between the movie version of the scene and the book version. Which do you prefer and why?
Here's mine: In the book, Mrs. Meecham has "dark, luxuriant red" hair "half covering her right eye." She's meant to seem sexy in the book. That doesn't come across nearly as well in the movie -- she doesn't even have red hair -- perhaps because the director needs to keep the focus on the colonel. But I liked the book's Mrs. Meecham better.

"The Way We Wish We Were"

It's funny how we assume certain things.
When I ask students if the crime rate in the United States is rising or falling, they invariably say it is on the increase.
But it's not.
If you watch television news, however, you get the impression that crime is ever-present.
Stephanie Coontz does a really good job using statistics to destroy some cherished assumptions about family life in the United States -- especially the belief that things were so much better "back in the good old days."
After reading her article, cite one statistic Coontz uses to contradict an assumption. Find its footnote, and explain where she got her information.
Avoid using the same statistic as a classmate.
This is due Tuesday, March 24.

Grammar Girl

Quick and Dirty tips on writing right.
Free podcast.
Aren't we hip?

For Thursday, March 19: "Cyclops"

You've heard the warnings before: "Bundle up or you'll catch your death of cold." "Put that down before you poke out your eye." After reading "Cyclops" by David Sedaris (the handout in the holder on my office door), tell us an oddball warning you've heard an adult tell a child.
My favorite is one my wife used to tell our children when they pouted: "If a cold wind blows, your face will freeze like that." They actually believed it until they were older.

For Tuesday, March 17: Your Inner Guy

Please read Dave Barry's "Guys vs. Men" on page 405 in "Presence."
Come up with your own "Guy" invention.
Here's mine: A gun that shoots spices into meat. You'd use it before throwing a steak on the grill.
Nowadays, you can buy injectors, which are huge hypodermic needles that inject liquid into meats.
But a gun is so much cooler.

A Letter to America

Read Margaret Atwood's letter (Presence, pp 510-512) and respond this way:
Angrily rebut her argument. Act incensed. Get on your high horse and blast away at her.
P.S. It doesn't matter whether you agree or disagree with her yourself; I just want you to take up the opposite side. Have fun.

The New Fundamentalism

Read the Gregg Easterbrook piece on pages 343-346 of "Presence" and respond by writing whether you agree or disagree with the solution he mentions at the end -- "to teach the controversy." How do you think that strategy would work in a Lyndon State biology class?

He or she? They? Ip?

My pet peeve makes cnn.com!

Updated Error-Catching Honor Roll

Be the first to point out an error the professor makes, and turn a quiz grade into an A.

Treg: March 10 (Caught "lift/life" error in PowerPoint)
Neil: March 5 (Name is Neil, not Nick!)
Elaine: March 5 (Revision is due March 10, not March 11)
Brittany: March 5 (Bobby, not Barry Henderson)
Brittany: March 3 (the exact error escapes me)
Ashley M.: Feb. 17 (caught Friday-Thursday mistake)
Elaine: Feb. 16 (caught wrong page number for Langston Hughes reading)
Mary: Feb. 6 (caught a missing question mark in my lecture notes)
Lindsey: Feb. 3 (I called her by the wrong name -- twice!)
Jimmy: Jan. 29 (caught misspelling of friend's son's name)
Elaine: Jan. 28 (caught spelling error in lecture notes on Blackboard)
Elaine: Jan. 24 (David Sedaris story listed twice in class schedule)
Brian: Jan. 22 (LIttleton -- errant capital I)
Brittany: Jan. 21 (pointed out time-zone error on blog)
Moriah: Jan. 20 (18 students instead of 16)

Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

Bobby Henderson's e-mail to the Kansas School Board is not exactly a letter to the editor, but it served a similar purpose. It drew attention to the School Board's assault on evolution and helped generate widespread derision. The board members eventually were voted out of office.
A visit to his Web site is eye-opening. Four years after he wrote the e-mail, he still gets hate mail.
After reading "Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster" (Presence, pg. 348), tell us about a particularly effective bit of satire that you've read, heard, or seen (on television perhaps). What made it effective?
This response is due on Thursday, March 5.