History 323
South Carolina Budget
If you want to debate politics, here is a specific proposal. I propose removing the cap on the car sales tax. To quote
one comment: "The state has a $300 cap on sales tax for cars, trucks, boats and even airplanes. Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, an Orangeburg Democrat and member of the Ways and Means Committee, says she doesn't understand why someone who buys a $100,000 car pays the same sales tax on it as someone buying a $6,000 used car." That would be a way to raise taxes that doesn't hurt people who are struggling and isn't unfair--everyone would still pay the same percentage (5%). It would raise about $100 million a year--not enough to solve the budget problem but significant (
more information).
Update:
Ben posted some interesting thoughts.
Thoughts about Berry
I didn't have this all planned out, but I hope that Berry's comments about the need for broader education (for example, pp. 156-7) fit somewhat what I am trying to do by throwing a book about values into a history class. Some students have weighed in with interesting comments: see:
Ben,
Georgia,
Ernest,
Maura, and
Kelly (page down).
Mad Farmer's Liberation Front
You may be amused by this
poem by Wendell Berry. One snippet:
"So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute."
Mars
I didn't get to it myself but I hear the talk about sending humans to Mars was good. Josh posted some
thoughts and links about the lecture.
thinking about weblogs
You might be interested in a
weblog assignment for a political science course at the State University of New York, Oswego, which I think describes well what the point is (though it requires a more focused weblog than I am looking for).
terror alert
The
government advises us to buy
duct tape and plastic sheeting. Is this any less silly than building
bomb shelters in the 1950s?
humanities for engineers
Those of you who are engineering majors might be interested in an
article on why Cal Tech requires engineering students to take demanding humanities courses (including a course on 19th century America with 8 books as required reading).
Update:
Christy posted some thoughts on this.
War
Daniel asks if we are going to war soon. Are you
for or
against war? How has technology changed our views about going to war? Do we now support war more easily because we don't expect significant numbers of Americans to be
killed or has technology made war more frightening?
ice damaged shuttle?
This would be too ironic. Read carefully enough to see what they think the ice might be made from.
Wendell Berry
I just ran into some thoughts by
Wendell Berry (author of the book we are reading next) on
the meaning of Sept. 11, 2001.
World Trade Towers
Kelly (if you page down) has some good links and discussion of planning for the replacement of the World Trade Towers. For a discussion of the structural issues in the tower collapse see
here or
here.
Chess
The latest contest between the word chess champion and a computer
ended in a draw.
Here's some discussion of whether chess playing counts as artificial intelligence.
Links
Some students on the shuttle accident (starting from the end of the alphabet):
Christy
Ernest
Luke
Robert
Daniel
Tabitha
Alonzo
I was quoted yesterday in the
Greenville News. I've already gotten one email from someone pointing out that lots of people drive 20 year old cars.
More thoughts on the shuttle accident
What were the lessons that could have been learned from the
Challenger accident? The struggle for NASA continues to be with treating an inherently risky technology as routine. A decision was made
not to check for damage done during the launch. The Shuttles are old--Columbia was launched in
1981, and so the technology they use dates from the 1970s. The risks increase
as they get older but there hasn't been the political will to authorize the building a replacement.
The Space Shuttle
For a lot of good links on this story try:
2020 Hindsight, or for perspective try:
an opinion piece from the Christian Science Monitor. I was deeply involved in the response to the Challenger disaster because I was at the time doing research on the history of the space program. I wondered then if NASA would survive; I think in the end I'm struck by how little changed. But it is hard to face going through that emotional experience again.
