Final Exam readings

The three articles that would be beneficial for you to read again for the final are the following:

Think Again: Civil Society

Tocqueville's missionaries: Civil Society Advocacy...

Unsustainability as a Frame of mind... (The Trumpeter 2002)

They all follow each other and are located in the middle of the reading packet.
These readings will be helpful in answering some of the multiple choice and short answer questions. See you on Tuesday at 4:00pm.

Commercial Enterprise or Public Service?

Continuing our discussions in class about the Bolonia process and the public / private dynamic of higher education, I wanted to post a question for discussion here on the blog. For all of you coming from the US university system, the private sectors presence in institutions of higher education is old news.
In Europe and in particular Spain this in some ways is one of the issues involved with the Bolonia process. Public institutions in Spain since the transition, have provided a service that is free from the profit motive. Universities at times would even run at a loss because they were providing an important service to society. I leave you with this question to debate:

To what extent should a university behave like a commercial enterprise and to what extent should it behave like a public service?

Presentations and Investigstion

Presentations will begin on Tuesday afternoon. The criteria for which you will be graded on are the following: Content, Coherence & Organization, and Speaking skills. As you know, the final due date for the investigation is on Thursday, December 4th. See you on Tuesday.

Class canceled on Tuesday November 25th

I must cancel class on Tuesday because I am taking my politics and terrorism class to the Mosque in Alicante. We are going there to talk with their cultural representative and have some drinks and snacks. If anyone is interested in going, we are meeting at 3:30pm at the Havana cafe on the Rambla. Please let me know if you are coming by posting a comment so I can arrange with them.

The presentations are scheduled for next week starting on December 2, 2008. Please be ready on that day to present your investigations.

A new 21st century paradigm

The more you ponder on the financial crisis, that was precipitated by the "sub-prime" loans and exposed all sorts of high risk investments, the more you question the rational behind it all. As huge bailout packages are being presented by governments worldwide, the essential lesson that we learn is a very interesting one.

When the economy is booming all the benefits remain private, but when there is a crash the errors are collective and the loses are socialized. Please shed some light on this and debate this new private-public paradigm.

ETA Bombs Spanish University

International Herald Tribune

October 30, 2008

MADRID: A car bomb injured 17 people Thursday at a university in the northern Spanish city of Pamplona after police searched the wrong campus for explosives following a telephone call purportedly from the Basque separatist group ETA warning of an imminent attack, Spanish authorities said.

The government blamed ETA for the incident.

The bomb exploded in a parking lot at the University of Navarra at 11 a.m., according to the Interior Ministry in Madrid. Few students were in the area where the bomb exploded because of rain.

"We could have had an enormous tragedy at the University of Navarra," Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba told a news conference in Madrid. "The bomb simply went off when nobody was around."

Police received a warning call in the name of ETA an hour before the explosion, Rubalcaba said, but the caller did not specify which university would be attacked.

Police first searched the campus in nearby Vitoria, which meant that officials were not able to evacuate the Pamplona university in time — the usual police procedure following ETAwarning calls. The Pamplona campus was evacuated following the explosion.

The bomb may have contained up to 220 pounds of explosives, according to Spanish press reports. Most of the injuries were caused by flying glass.

The attack was the sixth since 1979 on the university, which is located in the northern region of Navarra, one of several Basque-speaking provinces which ETA would like to turn into an independent state.

Authorities speculate that the attack was a response to the recent arrest of three suspected ETA leaders in Pamplona and another in Valencia.

ETA ended its most recent truce in December 2006 when talks with the Spanish government broke down.

ETA has killed more than 800 people in its nearly four-decade fight for an independent Basque state in parts of southern France and northern Spain. In recent years it has been severely weakened by recruitment problems and hundreds of arrests in both Spain and France.

Democracy in Action: Early voting in US election

The race factor in US Elections

I am glad that the issue of race was finally brought into the discussion. Below are some statistics giving us a snapshot of the preferences of each race in the 2008 election. What role do you think race plays in the election?

Total USA population by race 2007:
66% White
15.5% Latinos
13.5% Blacks
5% Asians

Support for Candidates:

Obama

Whites: 41%
Latinos:62%
Blacks: 83%
Asian: 41%

McCain

Whites: 47%
Latinos:28%
Blacks: 7%
Asian: 24%

Source: US Census Bureau/NBC/NAAS

'Big Bang' Experiment

Take a look at the video below. The largest scientific experiment ever produced provides interesting questions for debate. Firstly, how would would the results of an experiment affect or change our lives ? Are the 6 billion dollars that the machine costs being well spent or just a waste of funds that could be put to better use in other areas of research ?

Some scientists, led by Walter Wagner are trying to stop the experiment from taking place through a lawsuit as he claims that is could produce black holes that could swallow the earth as we know it. What are your opinions??

'Big-Bang ' The Largest Scientific Experiment in History

The Myths of the 2008 Presidential Race

Like most presidential elections, the 2008 US elections represents a collision of myths of the various versions of America that exist. What are these myths that are being portrayed?

AIG executives head to resort

AIG insurance company was given an $85 billion dollar loan from the government to prevent them from filing bankruptcy. Here is an excerpt from today's Associated press article:

Outrage over perks

Lawmakers expressed outrage at perks AIG executives enjoyed less than a week after the bailout, including a spa retreat where they racked up bills for $200,000 for hotel rooms and $23,000 for spa services.

"They were getting facials, manicures, and massages, while the American people were footing the bill," said Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat on the oversight panel.The oversight committee examined thousands of pages of internal documents produced by AIG and former executives.


Comments ?? Opinions??

Homework for Fall Break

I- A two page reflection paper based on the Time article:
" The Price of Greed"
II- Read " At the end of an age" pg 28-44 in your class supplementary readings

Both of these assignments are due on Tuesday October 14th

Welcome !

Welcome to the Spain & USA: the challenges of two democracies blog! Here we will be discussing and debating various contemporary challenges posed by the 21st century . I remind all students that your participation in the blog makes up 10% of your final grade and I encourage all of you to take part actively.

Postmodernity Defined