Eh.....Potentially..maybe..possibly dangerous?

Hi everyone, 

  Today was such a great class and I really want to thank everyone for being so honest and passionate about their opinions and experiences. This is a touchy issue that affects us all as Americans growing up in post-9/11. I hope you all enjoyed the discussion as much as I did!

We touched upon so many different facets of surveillance and entrapment, but one that we did not get to explore enough, was the rationale behind such “counter-terrorism” methods. Are they a sincere effort to stop terrorism? Or are there other implications and consequences of these efforts that are strategically employed? Imtashal and I spoke about the fear we experience every day, one that is pervasive in every aspect of our lives, of being labeled terrorists. While our rights are still theoretically in tact, because of the fear pervasive in the lives of Arab and Muslim Americans, due to these “counter-terrorism” efforts, we self-police, as Foucault would say, and suppress any political opinions or grievances we may have. Is this an "intentional" consequence, or simply a lucky coincidence? Similarly, why is the FBI going so far to literally create these terrorists? Does the constant reminder of terrorism reinforce our fear and thus our support and justification of the “War on Terror?"

Protecting vulnerable populations.

Hello to one and all. Thank you for an interesting class discussion.

As we discussed in class, the Federal Government has intervened and introduced regulations to protect the vulnerable populations. The most recent guidelines are the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects also known as The Common Rule. However, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, "[h]uman subject research conducted or supported by each federal department/agency is governed by the regulations of that department/agency. The head of that department/agency retains final judgment as to whether a particular activity it conducts or supports is covered by the Common Rule" (http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humansubjects/commonrule/). The problem with that for me lies with the department head making the ultimate decision. There is an old saying, "who will guard the guards?" Who will put check and balances on him/her?

We want to make profound differences in the world. We have seen though that sometimes despite the best of intentions, things can often go wrong. We have hindsight and foresight beyond previous generations, therefore we are in a more educated position than our predecessors. How are we going to use this education to take preventive steps to reduce the chances of ethical violations such as those that occurred in the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, Willowbrook Study, Thalidomide and the likes from happening in the future. As future leaders, lobbyists, politicians, advocates etc, what can we do to safeguard the vulnerable population realizing that they need protecting but at the same time we do not implement measures that are so stringent as to stifle medical and clinical research? After all, human test subjects are vital to advancement in medicine and research. How do we achieve the greatest good while doing the least harm? (Although my preference would be to do NO harm. I know that is not possible though.) Do the current guidelines provide the necessary protections for the vulnerable populations? With the great advancements being made in science and technology, can you think of any preventive guideline that can be added so as to factor in the rapid advancement being made?

I know I have posed many questions, but some of them are just food for thought. No need to feel overwhelmed by them. Answer as you are led.

It Wasn't Supposed To Happen This Way... Or Was It?

Hello Everyone,

Our discussion of the mentally ill population and their status in our society is a very relevant topic today! How did we end up with the same problem, which Dorothea Dix tried to "fix" decades ago? I would like to yet again pose the question, having seen the failure of a social policy (deinstitutionalization) gone completely wrong (for many reasons); how do we amend the damage and find a sustainable and pragmatic solution? Is such a solution even possible without compromising the rights of both the mentally ill populations and population at large? Remember, is the incarceration of such population completely senseless, or is it something that is unsurprisingly a part of a plan to "keep them away"?

 

Also, think about the work you are doing at your agencies. What solutions are they looking to achieve and how would you evaluate them? Are they treating the "symptoms" or digging deeper and addressing the larger problem at hand?

Thank you all for having participated during Thursdays class! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

 

-Ana

Do We Need Another Hero?

Welcome back, Verons, and well done on an excellent discussion of John Gardner's Grendel.  It doesn't take you folks too long to shake off the rust!  It was a long(ish) read for us and I'm sure there are many things you considered that didn't make it into seminar. Please feel free to share them here.  I will start with two questions, one we touched on and one we didn't.

Grendel and Grendel both complicate the idea of the hero.  If Grendel is one of Western literature's first monsters, Beowulf is certainly one of its first heroes (and as we said in class, that is causation not correlation).  Part of what the novel lays out is that heroes (Hrothgar, Unferth, the unnamed Beowulf) create monsters; it is true that Grendel is legitimately "other," however it is not until the one-two punch of having the axe thrown at him while he is trapped in the tree and the Shaper's song that his otherness is put to use.  Gardner also suggests that this absolutely irresistible hero-monster story allows us to be blind to the other opportunity costs/collateral damage of the battle.  So my question is: is heroism necessarily counter to the aims of social justice?  Are there heroes that do not construct monsters?

Second, I'd like folks to share their answers to the final journal question.  When thinking about your topic this semester (and if you drew a blank here, you could think about this in terms of the issues engaged in by your agency), what is the hero-monster story of your topic?  Are there clear cut good guys/bad guys? Truths?  Who or what would be the "Grendel" of that story -- not the monster, but the the other perspective that would challenge our assumptions about your topic?