Late summer ramblings (that I hope relates to the original post): Politics seems to be getting real nasty. I've always held to be belief that "democracy" doesn't work when you have an entrenched minority, for the minority never feels as if they can get a fair shake in elections, and this sets the stage for bitterness and then social unrest - case in point Iraq with an entrenched Sunni minority that would never win outright in elections (so the most logical head-of-state would be a secular strongman Sunni? ok let's not go there!). Unless my memory is faulty, it seems as if the US used to be a country where many people flip back and forth between parties, so the two dominant parties take turns governing. What I find real troubling is that the Obama-haters are acting like an entrenched minority who never win elections, given the flap over his citizenship, religion, threats about "second amendment solutions" etc. But politics in the US has, if anything, leaned to the right for many years. Of course some of the Obama haters also feel as if the Republicans are too leftist too .... not a good omen. My theory that the US is still in the throws of a cultural battle started in the 1960s with psycho-analytic overtones of drug use, flag burning, wild sex, etc .. all the Woodstock stuff.
On a different note, just read in the local NH news that Malia Obama has been vacationing at a small summer camp in Hebron NH, and that Michelle just picked them up. Caught my attention since (if I have the camp correct) it's the lake I swim at all summer and I drive past it almost daily for my 6 pm swim. Apparently they did a good job of keeping it hush-hush though it sounds like the town starting buzzing about it before they left (small buzz though, Hebron has a population of 450). But what caught my attention was the web comments on the local news web site, they were pretty charged. Many were happy to see her have a normal summer camp experience, but a few got quite nasty, complaining about spending their taxes to pay for these vacations, how these people were not welcome here, etc etc etc. Michelle has been on the Vineyard for a while, and they think she drove to pick Malia up. My mind boggles at the logistics of putting the kids into a summer camp for a few weeks and keeping it off the radar screen! Has be a great experience for the other kids at camp too ... imagine the "What I did over the summer" essays from the other kids! The summer camp story (if anyone cares to see it) is on the wmur.com web site, the web site for Channel 9, the main TV channel for NH. ========================== John W. Kulig Professor of Psychology Plymouth State University Plymouth NH 03264 ==================================================================== GALILEO GALILEI: I do not feel obligated to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reasons, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. ==================================================================== ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Palij" <[email protected]> To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" <[email protected]> Cc: "Mike Palij" <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2010 4:13:55 PM Subject: [tips] U.S. Adults Say The Darnedest Things! The Christian Science Monitor has an article that reviews the results of a Pew Research Center poll on the U.S. perception of the religion of President Obama and 18% said that they thought he was a Muslim, compared to 12% who thought he was Muslim back in March 2008 (there was a 7% point jump from March 2009 [11%] to August 2009 [18%]). The respondents were also asked why they thought he was Muslim. Quoting the article: |Pew asked about that, as well. Of those who believe Obama to be |Muslim, 60 percent said they learned that from the media. As to |which media, 16 percent said TV, 6 percent said newspapers, and |3 percent said magazines. | |One percent said they learned about Obama being Islamic from his |book. Those people must have been skimming. .... | |Interestingly, 10 percent of those with this mistaken impression said |that they learned about Obama’s religion from his own behaviors or |his own words. The poll was taken prior to Obama’s statements |supporting construction of a mosque near the World Trade Center site. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/The-Vote/2010/0819/Why-do-1-in-5-Americans-think-President-Obama-is-a-Muslim The Pew Research Center Report can be obtained here: http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/645.pdf I guess we have a new urban legend to debunk in class. As the Report makes clear, certains groups seem to hold the mistaken belief to a greater degree than other groups, so the percentage of students in your class who believe that President Obama is a Muslim will depend upon the composition of the student population. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13338.f659d005276678c0696b7f6beda66454&n=T&l=tips&o=4298 or send a blank email to leave-4298-13338.f659d005276678c0696b7f6beda66...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=4304 or send a blank email to leave-4304-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
