WWW www.habermas.org

California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: April 24, 2005
Latest Update: April 24, 2005
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Topic of the Week:

Had I known that religion would come thus to the forefront . . .

Tina used to ask, must we discuss religion. And I always said yes, because we must. But had I known that the Pope would die and that Cardinal Ratzinger would become Pope Benedict XVI, I think I would have skipped the idea all together. That's because Pope Benedict is the one who is most concerned about keeping Europe, not the world, but Europe, Catholic. He is also concerned about doctrinal orthodoxy, that is, that you should believe what he, the Pope, says you should believe. For me and for Pat this is a disaster, because we are radically left compared to the New Pope's philosophy of protecting morality from secularism in Europe, and in his absolute rejection of liberation theology in South America, and in his relatively more gentle reactions to those like Archbishop Milingo of Zambia, who got himself married by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon in a mass marriage ceremony.

Some articles we'll talk about this week:

• Crossing Cardinal Nein By Alessandra Stanley. Sunday, April 24, 2005. Backup.
• A High-Tech Lynching in Prime Time By Frank Rich. Sunday, April 24, 2005. Backup.

  NEWS, Announcements, and
  

  Current Discussion Topics:

• Learning Records for Spring 2005 Not yet back to putting up grade information. Still trying to get files and e-mail straight. Sorry for delay. This will take a while, but if you'll send me your messages numbers, it will help me get it up faster. Please be patient with me. I'm retired this semester. And Pat and I will be in on Wednesday, April 27. I'll post times once I know them.jeanne

• Learning Records with Grades for Spring 2005 A record sheet that will let you know that I have adequate material on learning records to justify your grade. If I put up a B that may just mean I need more material, not that there was something wrong with what you submitted. I'm including brief comments. If you've got a message on transform_dom that would you would like me to use for grade evidence, just send me the message no. at jeanne. Otherwise, I'll just keep going through the transform_dom discussions in reverse chronological order. jeanne

• Instructions page for joining transform_dom and transspan

  • Link for joining transform_dom:

    
    Click to join transform_dom

  Famous People and Concepts We Should Have Heard Of, But Often Haven't.

  People

  • Senator Frist Senate Majority Leader. You'll want to follow this week's lecture on some of his positions, accompanied by Frank Rich's article, A High-Tech Lynching in Prime Time By Frank Rich. Sunday, April 24, 2005. Backup.

  • Pope Benedict XVI. Crossing Cardinal Nein By Alessandra Stanley. Sunday, April 24, 2005. Backup. The election of Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope will have a major impact on religion as a present social issues in the U.S. and in Latin America.

  • Goffman, Erving - Backstage and frontstage behavior. Comparison of human interaction to a play on the stage. Backstage requires that you be aware of the context and the jargon that fits it, so sometimes backstage is a little inhibiting until you learn who the characters are and what the norms for behavior are. See Living and Learning.

    Concepts

  • Backstage and frontstage behavior. Comparison of human interaction to a play on the stage. Backstage requires that you be aware of the context and the jargon that fits it, so sometimes backstage is a little inhibiting until you learn who the characters are and what the norms for behavior are. See Living and Learning.

  Jeanne's Lectures for Spring 2005

  • Fall 2004 Lectures in Chronological Order
  • Winter Break 2005 Lectures in Chronological Order
  • Spring 2005 Lectures in Chronological Order

  • Issues in Contemporary Humanity: My World on April 26, 2005. On Love 1A, and how most of us need to learn it.
  • Issues in Contemporary Christianity: My World on April 25, 2005 On the Pope and colonization and exploitation and women's roles and social justice in face of orthodoxy and obedience.
  • Issues in Contemporary Islam: My World on April 20, 2005 On PBS' presentation of Death of a Princess.

  • Crossing Cardinal Nein By Alessandra Stanley. Sunday, April 24, 2005. Backup. This article will give you some idea of the present social issues as they will be affected by the election of this theologically conservative cardinal as Pope. See blogs for lectures. jeanne
  • A High-Tech Lynching in Prime Time By Frank Rich. Sunday, April 24, 2005. Backup. This article on the Religious Right attack on gays and gay marriage includes Senator Frist's medically unsupported statement that AIDS can be spread by sweat and tears. This illustrates his willingness to use non-facts to attack the position he believes to be correct. You already know what jeanne will say to that. None of us has "the right answer" to present social issues like the accuracy of our belief that "Our God" is the "right God" or that sexuality is only acceptable as we practice it. More later. See blogs for lectures. jeanne
  • Bloodied Marines Sound Off About Want of Armor and Men New York Times. April 25, 2005. At p. A1.Backup. Marines speak of their lack of supplies, breaking the traditional code of silence. WE will discuss answerability and codes of silence. See blogs for lectures. jeanne
  • A Hundred Cellphones Bloom, and Chinese Take to the Streets New York Times. April 25, 2005. At p. A1. Backup. The code of silence imposed by the Chnese government was partially superceded by citizens use of their cell phones. See blogs for lectures.. jeanne
  • Illegal Immigration Fears Have Spread: Populist calls for tougher enforcement are being heard beyond the border states. Los Angeles Times. April 25, 2005. At p. A 1. Backup. Workers from chicken factories in the South angered by immigrants taking their jobs. How did the immigrants know to come there unless someone wanted them there for cheap labor? Follow the money. Lecture up soon. jeanne
  • The Oblivious Right By Paul Krugman. NY Times. April 25, 2005. Backup. This op-ed column brings up the importance of illocutionary understanding, though Klugman doesn't call it that. He speaks of how the Bush administration speaks and listens only to corporate America and the religious right. jeanne

  Visual Sociology:

  • The New Nutrition Pyramid with Tools to Help You Use It Notice that they've done it in 3D with a runner, to encourage you to recognize the need for exercise, I write as I sit here in sedentary meditation at my computer. jeanne

  • 
    Hiding to avoid entering that place that excludes. jeanne's painting of one of her memories

  Academic Support

  • A Range of Sources on Global Info

    Left/Right Perspectives - Cursor - New York Times - The National Review
    Arts and Letters Daily - The Economist - The Sierra Club - The Guardian
    Wall Street Journal - The Weekly Standard - The Nation
    BBC NEWS | Americas - truthout - Museum of Tolerance, Los Angeles
    Los Angeles Times - Chicago Tribune - La Opinion - The Washington Post
    Cursor's Al Jazeera Archive - Ha'aretz - Palestine Monitor - Palestine Report

    Indymedia - Mother Jones - BBC News - New Profile - KPFK Progressive Radio
    Progressive Sociologists Network Environmental Working Group

  • Mentoring

    • How to Navigate the Web Site
      
    • Mentoring Help for New Students with Frequently Asked Questions
      
    • Mentoring Help for Returning Students with More Frequently Asked Questions
      
    • Shared Reading Suggestions

    • Home Page for transform-dom You can read all the messages on Transforming Dominant Discourse from this page. Just click on messages in the left hand frame. You can read the messages, even if you're having difficulty signing up.

      Syllabus for Independent Study: Religion as a Present Social Issue January 30, 2005.

      Learning Records from Spring 2005 Just started, on the basis of transform_dom discussions. This will take a while. I didn't work on learning records with all the confusion at home this week. Will get back to it shortly. jeanne

    • Most recent list of Learning Records from Fall 2004
      

    • Instructions page for joining transform_dom and transspan

      • Link for joining transform_dom:

        
        Click to join transform_dom

      Preparing for Graduate Study:

    • Test Prep Preview Joshua L. Stewart, recommended this site because it has free practice tests. If you're thinking of taking the GRE, the LAST, or any other graduate entry test, this might be a good place to gather some early information. Joshua suggested it for Praxis Practice, but a quick first look suggests they don't mean by praxis what we do. Check it out, anyway, if you have some spare time. jeanne

  • Resource Literacy

    • Urban Legends Reference Pages. They post rumors and scams and phony e-mails circulating, to offer you a quick check. It worked for me. I entered "Fat Boy" as a google seacrch, and when I saw the Snopes.com link, I knew it would help, and it did. To not check your sources is as grievous as to plagiarize someone else's information and writing. the-artists.org Good quick reference site with many of the artists, art schools, and visual approaches to present social issue that we discuss. Added April 8, 2005.

    • Plagiarism Watch www.streetgangs.com site. The intelligent and effective use of resources means that you have to be careful not to plagiarize other people's material. We have several files on plagiarism, but I think the one that might make the most sense to you is this complaint on streetgangs.com. They give you samples of sites that have taken their material without citation, even at colleges, and they also give you examples of sites that have used their material with proper attribution. I find the irony poetic, and hope that their message will get through to you the importance of attribution. Dr. O'Connor on his Mega Criminal Justice site led me to streetgangs.com and noted that others frequently hack into the site. For that reason I have created a backup copy for your use in case you cannot access the actual site. Please be sure to attribute any citation to streetgangs.com. jeanne Backup.

Using Academic Language Effectively

and Careers

• Resumes:

  • College Journal Resume Suggestions . . . Backup

• Letters of Recommendation:

  • Letters of Recommendation: How to get me to respond to your request. Many of you need letters. If you will follow this format, I can do them quickly and make them good.
  • Dog Letters If you do not give me adequate information, but do manage to get my attention, you may end up with a dog letter. That is a letter that says that you work well with people, that you are enthusiastic, that you persist at getting things done, and that everyone likes you. Of course, my dog gets along well with people, brings his ball to them, is enthusiastic, and persists at getting them to take his ball. Everyone likes my dog. That's a dog letter. It's so general it could be about my dog. jeanne

• Career Options You Might Not Have Considered

  • visual media and their interdependence with other means of knowing to understand that we are not totally rational creatures deciding things apart from our feelings and values. Wolfowitz (new President of the World Bank to aid developing countries AND principle advocate of the Iraq War) might feel very differently when he is exposed to visual and aural images of the poor developing countries that have not before been his primary concern. So we want to know how best to present those developing countries visually. And we might find that we can have a career doing that sort of thing, so it does reflect on us as individuals. Added April 2, 2005.

Sneaky Strokes and Flying Good Dogs

Flying Dog is also a painting by Zhang Kai. Best I've every come across to illustrate our site with magic numbers and unicorns and whipped cream cats and now, flying dogs: