I know this is a little late (class is tonight!), I've read all the material but I can't find any study guides to complete. Are there any? And if so, where are they?

Court Rules MySpace Postings Free Speech

INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indiana Court of Appeals has ruled that the free speech rights of a juvenile girl were violated when she was given probation for her foul-mouthed MySpace criticism of a school principal. The three-judge panel has ordered the Putnam Circuit Court to set aside its penalty against the girl, referred to only as A.B. in court records. The ruling said the judges do not condone what was said, but the message itself adds up to political speech.

I just wanted to make a little comment on the film that we watched last Wednesday entitled "Discovering the Human Language."

During the bit about the Walpiri people of Australia, I noticed some imperialist euphemisms. This is quite interesting to me especially because the film happens to be about language. Hmm.

The narrator mentioned that the Walpiri people "used to be nomadic" and that "now they cluster in one area." Cluster. Now I am not terribly familiar with the history of colonialism in Australia, but I think stating that "now they cluster" implies that the Walpiri people chose to change their way of life voluntarily. Also note the lack of explanation for this change. They simply used to be nomadic. Now, for unknown reasons, they are not. Furthermore, the word cluster seems quite inappropriate to describe a group of people instead of say, bushes.

There is a current controversy about racist comments made by Don Imus concerning the Rutgers women's basketball team. Does anyone have any ideas about why these types of comments are tolerated, and even encouraged, by the corporations that control traditional media?

I'm not familiar with the politics of blogging, but apparently there is a big debate going on about whether editing threatening language and vulgarity out of the visitor's comments section of your blog is censorship or responsible management. Here is a link to an article in today's New York Times where you can read all about it.

Click here for NYT Article.

 

Watch this clip from Meet the Press and make a guess at why this is even being discussed. What's going on here?

Occasionally my conservative aunt sends out politically charged email-in-a-can to everyone on her address list which includes me. The emails range from rich text encouraging the "silent majority" (i.e. obnoxious right-wingers) to "stand up and tell those whiny minorities to shut up" about the ten commandments in public places, to slideshows of American landscapes and monuments and soaring eagles set to a country music song that implicitly ridicules other country musicians who have "unpatriotic" opinions. I thought I'd break the blogging ice by sharing my aunt's most recent pleasant prepackaged sentiment followed by my immediate reply. In my reply I tried to limit myself to one specific argument rather than launching into everything from the demeaning aspect of the idea of "common sense" to the fallacy that every bird without a worm must be lazy. I must say my reply is a bit caustic, and I would write it a tad differently today. I geuss I was too busy being reactionary in my criticism of reactionarianism. Here is her message: