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October 2008
Who had the best line during the debate?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Who had the best line during the debate? What were some statements that stay in your mind?
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Who won the debate?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Did John McCain or Barack Obama do better in Wednesday night’s presidential debate?
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Have the debates influenced how you’ll vote?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Have the presidential debates and the vice-presidential debate influenced your voting decision?
Did they reinforce your decision or make you change your mind?
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Should presidential debates include third-party candidates?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Supporters of presidential candidates other than John McCain and Barack Obama — for example, Ralph Nader or Bob Barr — should be asked to participate in the presidential debates?
What do you think?
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Should presidential debates be livelier?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
According to Gillian Silverman, an assistant professor of English at the University of Colorado Denver, election debates have not always been the genteel affairs we have seen in recent weeks.
In an opinion column in the Los Angeles Times, Silverman writes: “Running for the Senate 150 years ago, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas faced off in a series of seven debates across Illinois, remembered to this day as among the most important in U.S. history. Each spoke in the open air for a total of 90 minutes, with no amplification to be heard above the jeering crowds.
“The mass of spectators — as many as 20,000 at the first debate in Ottawa — responded to the orators as if they were prizefighters, urging their candidate to ‘hit him again,’ ‘stick it to him,’ ‘don’t spare him.’ According to historian Harold Holzer, Douglas supporters even brought a brass cannon that they set off after he delivered an especially good verbal blow.”
Silverman concludes: “If America really wants an energized electorate, we should embrace the real legacy of Lincoln-Douglas. Brokaw moderating a staged “town hall” — with its carefully selected audience and civil Q&A — is not enough. What’s needed is an unpredictable and raucous environment that forces the candidates to respond extemporaneously to the audience as well as to each other. This might not dignify the debates, but it would do much to bring Americans back to an experience of politics as participatory, communal and fun.”
What do you think of the presidential debate formats thus far and how would you improve them for 2012?
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Are political uses of a song OK when artists object?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A Washington Post opinion column by Christopher Sprigman and Siva Vaidhyanathan notes:
“After vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin finished her big speech at the Republican National Convention, the 1977 song ‘Barracuda,’ by the band Heart, blared out over the roar of the crowd. Convention organizers chose the music to highlight Palin’s high school basketball-team nickname, ‘Sarah Barracuda.’ But Heart’s songwriters, Ann and Nancy Wilson, were less than pleased.
“The sisters released a statement saying that ‘Sarah Palin’s views and values in no way represent us as American women’ and insisted that the McCain-Palin campaign not play their song. Their publisher, Universal Music Publishing, and their label, Sony BMG, sent a cease-and-desist letter to the campaign.”
Sprigman and Vaidhyanathan write that: “Artists should speak up, loudly, when they feel the use of their songs misrepresents their views, particularly if such use could create the public impression of an endorsement.”
But they argue, they should not be permitted to file a copyright lawsuit to prevent the political use of a song. Among the reasons: “There is an inherent tension between copyright law — which tells us what we cannot say, sing or perform — and the First Amendment, which protects against state censorship. In this case, the First Amendment must win. Rich and varied political speech — no matter how distasteful to recording artists or their fans — must prevail and stay free.”
Read the full column at washingtonpost.com
Are political uses of a song OK, even if used to support a candidate not in keeping with the artists’ ideology?
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Who won the debate?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Did John McCain or Barack Obama do better in Tuesday night’s presidential debate?
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Who had the best line during the debate?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
What were the best lines of the debate? Who had the best barb? John McCain or Barack Obama?
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Who do you expect to win tonight’s debate?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Republican John McCain versus Democrat Barack Obama in Tuesday’s presidential debate: Who do you think will win?
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Who has the most at stake in tonight’s debate?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Is it more important that John McCain to do well tonight or is it more important that Barack Obama debate well?
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Name-brand colleges not worth extra debt
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Summer jobs underwrote most of my undergraduate years at a state university. After college, I worked for a year to earn enough to pay for a master’s degree at an Ivy League university.
But with the leap in the cost of higher education, the only way today’s college students could pull that off is by spending that year running drugs and the summer selling body parts.
In a generation, the average annual tuition at public four-year colleges and universities rose 268 percent, while the cost of private schools swelled 248 percent.
Last week, my high school senior came home with a list of small liberal colleges that his counselor felt were good academic matches. I spent a while on the Internet researching costs, and it wasn’t easy. Pricey colleges tend to downplay their prices, omitting them from their “At a Glance” or “Quick Facts” pages.
No wonder. Tuition and room and board at two of the schools exceeded $50,000. Both reject more students than they accept, so they have no reason to fret much that their prices are driving off applicants. In fact, the most selective universities are typically the priciest.
College presidents blame climbing costs on the bidding war for the very best faculty, demands by students for fancy amenities such as tony health clubs and competition to attract the most talented scholars. Critics counter that college presidents are overlooking a few factors, such as their own lack of market discipline and their indifference to productivity. For example, research shows that while teaching loads of tenured professors have fallen, salaries have increased. And the scholarships dangled in front of talented students are more about enhancing a school’s U.S. News & World Report ranking than improving education for all students.
As long as parents take out second mortgages and raid retirement funds to afford college, critics say, schools have no motivation to change. Plus, parents can point to evidence that their investment in a brand-name campus pays off for their child.
A study released this summer by PayScale Inc., which compiles compensation data, found that the median starting salary for Ivy League graduates is 32 percent higher than that of liberal-arts college graduates. PayScale says the median starting salary for a University of Georgia graduate is $44,100, compared to $66,400 for a Harvard grad. However, the study doesn’t address whether that pay differential is the result of a better education, or simply because the Ivies can attract higher-achieving students in the first place.
To me, the question is whether the additional prestige of a high-priced college degree justifies the additional debt that often comes with it, especially in this dicey economy. We’ve all heard stories about the bright college grad who moves back home with an anthropology degree, $40,000 in loans and a waitress job.
My oldest transferred from a private school to UGA this year, and says she’s much happier. She’s not juggling schoolwork and two part-time jobs. With the HOPE scholarship, she’s not feeling guilty about whether we’ll have any money left to send her three siblings to college, a feeling probably fueled by tales of how often I’ve been serving macaroni and cheese for dinner.
With two kids in college next year, there’s a lot more mac and cheese ahead. Fortunately, I like it.
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What was the best line of the debate?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
What were the best lines of the debate? Who had the best barb? Sarah Palin or Joe Biden?
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Who won the debate?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Did Sarah Palin or Joe Biden do better in Thursday night’s vice-presidential debate?
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Who has the most at stake in tonight’s debate?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Is it more important that Sarah Palin to do well tonight or is it more important that Joe Biden debate well?
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Who do you expect to win tonight’s debate?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Republican Sarah Palin against Democrat Joe Biden in the vice presidential debate: Who do you think will win?
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