From The Federalist Papers, No. 68
"The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.
"Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States.
"It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue. And this will be thought no inconsiderable recommendation of the Constitution, by those who are able to estimate the share which the executive in every government must necessarily have in its good or ill administration.
"Though we cannot acquiesce in the political heresy of the poet who says: 'For forms of government let fools contest That which is best administered is best,'' yet we may safely pronounce, that the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration."
"Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States.
"It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue. And this will be thought no inconsiderable recommendation of the Constitution, by those who are able to estimate the share which the executive in every government must necessarily have in its good or ill administration.
"Though we cannot acquiesce in the political heresy of the poet who says: 'For forms of government let fools contest That which is best administered is best,'' yet we may safely pronounce, that the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration."
-Alexander Hamilton
The White House Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights
Individual Control: Consumers have a right to exercise control over what personal data companies collect from them and how they use it.
Transparency: Consumers have a right to easily understandable and accessible information about privacy and security practices.
Respect for Context: Consumers have a right to expect that companies will collect, use, and disclose personal data in ways that are consistent with the context in which consumers provide the data.
Security: Consumers have a right to secure and responsible handling of personal data.
Access and Accuracy: Consumers have a right to access and correct personal data in usable formats, in a manner that is appropriate to the sensitivity of the data and the risk of adverse consequences to consumers if the data is inaccurate.
Focused Collection: Consumers have a right to reasonable limits on the personal data that companies collect and retain.
Accountability: Consumers have a right to have personal data handled by companies with appropriate measures in place to assure they adhere to the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights.
Race Baiting
RACE BAITING 101 - share it if you feel it!And get the page turning thriller (true story) PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES by Howard Zinn — LINK HERE: http://bit.ly/1NhoDT1#BlackLivesMatter #wereallinthistogether
Posted by Matthew Cooke on Monday, August 3, 2015
Ad Up
Determine your ad's reach by identifying precise interests, broad categories and connections and friends of connections. What would be your audience?
Save a copy of your ad and your audience analysis via screen shot and post to your blog along with your thoughts on your targeted interests and categories and the number of people Facebook is promising you to reach.
Automatic Attitudinal Response Rubric
Point Value: 100
Activity Description
During this semester you've been exposed to and written about various issues ranging from birth control to privacy from On The Media, and chances are there was something you heard that made you default to a primary certitude, a hidden assumption, or an ethnocentric position.
Since a big part of changing the way one thinks is recognizing certain automatic attitudinal responses like those listed above, I'm asking you to write about recognizing your own default responses within your own writing - assertions you've posted in your responses to the OTM assignment.
You may want to revisit the post on this blog, The Danger of Critical Thinking, to help you frame the concept of the automatic attitudinal response. Then, with that working knowledge, examine your own voice, your thoughts as posted in your OTM responses to become aware of these barriers to critical thought.
Post your findings on your blog, read your peers' postings and comment, create discussions about how a provisional perspective can help one become better informed, especially through the channels of social media.
Rubric
1. You've identified your own barriers to critical thought, automatic attitudinal responses such as primary certitude, hidden assumption, and/or ethnocentric influences found within your OTM or WI writings.
/60 Points
2. You've posted how you've changed your thinking, overcoming critical barriers, in recognizing your automatic attitudinal response. (20 points possible.)
/20 Points
3. You've posted a thoughtful comment on at least one other post from a peer in class.
/20 Points
Activity Description
During this semester you've been exposed to and written about various issues ranging from birth control to privacy from On The Media, and chances are there was something you heard that made you default to a primary certitude, a hidden assumption, or an ethnocentric position.
Since a big part of changing the way one thinks is recognizing certain automatic attitudinal responses like those listed above, I'm asking you to write about recognizing your own default responses within your own writing - assertions you've posted in your responses to the OTM assignment.
You may want to revisit the post on this blog, The Danger of Critical Thinking, to help you frame the concept of the automatic attitudinal response. Then, with that working knowledge, examine your own voice, your thoughts as posted in your OTM responses to become aware of these barriers to critical thought.
Post your findings on your blog, read your peers' postings and comment, create discussions about how a provisional perspective can help one become better informed, especially through the channels of social media.
Rubric
1. You've identified your own barriers to critical thought, automatic attitudinal responses such as primary certitude, hidden assumption, and/or ethnocentric influences found within your OTM or WI writings.
/60 Points
Thorough (50-60 points)
The student recognizes their inherent default(s) to critical thinking, correctly identifying as primary certitude, hidden presumption, and/or ethnocentricity in relation to their position on the issue at hand.
Talking Points (30-49 points)
The student lists their default objections on the issue but doesn't connect to their automatic attitudinal response.
Surface (15-29 points)
The student acknowledges a barrier but doesn't define it.
The student recognizes their inherent default(s) to critical thinking, correctly identifying as primary certitude, hidden presumption, and/or ethnocentricity in relation to their position on the issue at hand.
Talking Points (30-49 points)
The student lists their default objections on the issue but doesn't connect to their automatic attitudinal response.
Surface (15-29 points)
The student acknowledges a barrier but doesn't define it.
2. You've posted how you've changed your thinking, overcoming critical barriers, in recognizing your automatic attitudinal response. (20 points possible.)
/20 Points
Digested (15-20)
The student discovers their default thinking and discusses how they can dismantle primary certitude, hidden presumptions and/or ethnocentricity through being more provisional in identifying common ground.
Identified (8-14 points)
The student indicates a change in thinking based on identifying a default response.
Aware (3-7 points)
The student is aware that a change is needed.
The student discovers their default thinking and discusses how they can dismantle primary certitude, hidden presumptions and/or ethnocentricity through being more provisional in identifying common ground.
Identified (8-14 points)
The student indicates a change in thinking based on identifying a default response.
Aware (3-7 points)
The student is aware that a change is needed.
3. You've posted a thoughtful comment on at least one other post from a peer in class.
/20 Points
Deep (15-20 points)
The student's comment identifies barriers and discusses solutions.
Shallow (8-14 points)
The student's comment discusses the barrier.
Surface (3-7)
The student's comment is meta.
The student's comment identifies barriers and discusses solutions.
Shallow (8-14 points)
The student's comment discusses the barrier.
Surface (3-7)
The student's comment is meta.
The United States of Secrets
1. President Obama's reversal on FISA, refusing to uphold his promise of Federal transparency, is the reason why Edward Snowden became a whistleblower.
a. True
b. False
2. "Metadata" refers to
a. phone numbers and duration of calls.
b. email and text message content.
c. Skype conversations.
d. wire tapping.
3. President Obama commissioned a committee to investigate the NSA, giving them free reign to assess every aspect of the agency's behavior, as long as their investigation did not
a. out any covert operatives.
b. reveal any top secret operation currently in place.
c. interfere with his Constitutional oath in defending the United States of America.
d. point any fingers to culprits involved during the Bush Administration.
4. Snowden's interview and revelation of the NSA's surveillance techniques that violate the IV Amendment rights of Americans brought the President to the point of justifying efforts in the balance of
a. democracy and tyranny.
b. freedom and privacy.
c. heroism and treason.
d. transparency and secrecy.
5. What kind of access were internet companies such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, Microsoft, and Apple giving the NSA?
a. Unknowing access to their physical data streams.
b. Enforced secret compliance through a National Security Letter.
c. Willing and unfettered access.
d. Both a and b.
6. The NSA modeled their internet data and intelligence gathering after
a. social media's marketing algorithms.
b. Executive Order 12333.
c. the Russians.
d. the FBI's issuing of NSLs.
7. Prism was not only the code name for a data-collection program of the Federal Government but was the actual method through which the NSA was copying internet data from AT&T's internet backbone in San Francisco.
a. True
b. False
8. Google, Facebook, Amazon, YouTube, Apple, Microsoft and and others were amassing huge data troves on their users, just like the NSA was amassing on US citizens, resulting in
a. surveillance for advertising instead of law enforcement.
b. developing "one-way" mirrors to eaves drop on users.
c. creating a robot that can read your diary and bank statements.
d. All the above.
9. ________ messages are scanned for content much in the same way the NSA scans data for meaning.
a. HotMail
b. Dmail
c. Gmail
d. Outlook Mail
10. The NSA piggy-backs on _______ developed by social media companies to surveil US citizens.
a. data trunk lines
b. internet routers
c. tracking cookies
d. location check-ins
"We can't hold the government responsible because we truly don't know what it's doing."
a. True
b. False
2. "Metadata" refers to
a. phone numbers and duration of calls.
b. email and text message content.
c. Skype conversations.
d. wire tapping.
3. President Obama commissioned a committee to investigate the NSA, giving them free reign to assess every aspect of the agency's behavior, as long as their investigation did not
a. out any covert operatives.
b. reveal any top secret operation currently in place.
c. interfere with his Constitutional oath in defending the United States of America.
d. point any fingers to culprits involved during the Bush Administration.
4. Snowden's interview and revelation of the NSA's surveillance techniques that violate the IV Amendment rights of Americans brought the President to the point of justifying efforts in the balance of
a. democracy and tyranny.
b. freedom and privacy.
c. heroism and treason.
d. transparency and secrecy.
5. What kind of access were internet companies such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, Microsoft, and Apple giving the NSA?
a. Unknowing access to their physical data streams.
b. Enforced secret compliance through a National Security Letter.
c. Willing and unfettered access.
d. Both a and b.
6. The NSA modeled their internet data and intelligence gathering after
a. social media's marketing algorithms.
b. Executive Order 12333.
c. the Russians.
d. the FBI's issuing of NSLs.
7. Prism was not only the code name for a data-collection program of the Federal Government but was the actual method through which the NSA was copying internet data from AT&T's internet backbone in San Francisco.
a. True
b. False
8. Google, Facebook, Amazon, YouTube, Apple, Microsoft and and others were amassing huge data troves on their users, just like the NSA was amassing on US citizens, resulting in
a. surveillance for advertising instead of law enforcement.
b. developing "one-way" mirrors to eaves drop on users.
c. creating a robot that can read your diary and bank statements.
d. All the above.
9. ________ messages are scanned for content much in the same way the NSA scans data for meaning.
a. HotMail
b. Dmail
c. Gmail
d. Outlook Mail
10. The NSA piggy-backs on _______ developed by social media companies to surveil US citizens.
a. data trunk lines
b. internet routers
c. tracking cookies
d. location check-ins
"We can't hold the government responsible because we truly don't know what it's doing."
In a Handbasket
From ImNoSaint, September 13th, 2013
I asked my Social Media students to simultaneously watch President Obama’s speech Tuesday last justifying his position on waging a military action against Syria, and track social media responses on any channel of their choice, though most went with Twitter and Facebook. The results were predictable, and yet perhaps a bit eye-opening for some. They were asked to then comment on whether their own position on this issue had changed as a result of the rhetoric, both presidential and social.
Reading through their blogs evolved a trend, one that sustains a persuasive phenomenon, the automatic attitudinal response. We all have several of these, rearing their rigid heads whenever our values are challenged. These are values where we’ve dug in our position with either not exploring why we’re so convicted or having forgotten why. We just respond. For example, consider your visceral response, your gut feeling as you read the following words:
abortion
family
capital punishment
heaven
gun rights
god
gay marriage
Chances are something resonated within you on at least one if not several of these terms. A conviction or at least a strong opinion. I’ll throw in one more:
Obama
Now, before you stop reading (and if you feel compelled to do so, this is exactly what I’m talking about, your automatic attitudinal response) I’m not going to continue on about President Obama.
Though you can imagine how students may have responded to their social media feeds versus the President’s actual address. Those with a more liberal slant, those whose social media following is made up of like attitudes and positions saw the President’s speech in a positive context. Those who are more conservative experienced the opposite. There was some middle ground, particularly with those who didn’t edit their friend lists, and there was ambivalence, but overall this was an exercise in automatic attitudinal responses.
One student posted;
“Not many of my friends from Facebook watched the speech tonight. Most said they had better things to do like make dinner or play with their kids.
“One friend said, ‘I am making a fun dinner for my family ~ No matter what he says, he will do the opposite, he has lost my confidence and trust~:(‘
“My uncle had this to say about our involvement in Syria, ‘These countries have been warring for 4000 years. We need to stay out of their junk. If per chance there should be an incident on OUR soil then, we don’t wait for three weeks to react. We strike fast and make a grease spot out of the area and let that be a warning to the rest of the world.’
“Some opinions were very clear… ‘He is the serpent in the grass, Obama is the anti-Christ’
‘Obama is a moron’
‘Forgive my cynicism. I will get the highlights on the news, I doubt he will say anything surprising’. :)”
It’s not surprising as well that there’s nothing positive about President Obama on her news feed, for her Facebook and Twitter feeds, like most of ours, reflect and support her own attitudes. We like to be supported in how we feel, especially when we feel very strongly about something.
So, instead of extolling Obama’s virtues or parading his vices as a president, this is an attempt to look at pervasive if not default responses based on our own automatic attitudinal responses and how they shape our reality, one in particular, that it’s all going to shit.
I’ve written before on our apocalyptic predispositions. Living where I do there’s a concentration of the end-of-the-world attitude, even retail outlets with merchandise to survive post-rapture. And I can’t help but wonder if living with the conviction of the second coming, or at least under the auspices that the world is ending, soon, is there not a prevailing attitude of giving up on the world in lieu of planning one’s retirement? I’ve listened to heartbreaking situations of students and associates where their only hope is that it will all somehow work out in the end, hoping that the end is near. Many accelerate that end by taking it, and their lives, into their own hands; tragedy incomparable to anything imagined by John the Revelator.
This attitude is in step with the notion of how terrible everything is. If you live in Detroit you have reason to feel this way. If you have the ability to understand that last sentence, have a job, a place to live, perhaps even a secure relationship and yet still see the sky as falling, you just may be defaulting to that automatic attitudinal response, being supported by like-minded, persuasive and important individuals in your social media life, as well as other social and cultural influences like religion.
We all have our own indicators that make up that dichotomy of how life is going. For me it’s manifest in the future for my children, the prospect of health and security for my wife and I, and the potential for adventure and travel. Yes, I have nothing to complain about. For the world there are a few other indicators as defined at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. The Guardian has put this in perspective twenty years later in their Rio+20 Interactive, looking at indicators such as population, life expectancy, child mortality, and more. For those Chicken Littles out there, there may be a few surprises.
The world population has increased by thirty percent in the last twenty years, an alarming growth rate especially in Asia and Africa, but there’s a fall in population growth rates that will lead to population stabilization in this century.
We’re living longer, unless we’re living in Sierra Leone or Detroit with domestic income being the single most contributing factor to longevity of life.
Child mortality is dropping thanks to similar health care considerations that lead to living longer. Again, the dividing factor here being income. High income families of lower infant mortality rates.
Poverty is down significantly in part thanks to the economic uprising of East Asia, while food production is up, though this has impacted the world environmentally. Though more food is being produced, more people are going hungry due to food prices, not availability. Despite the economic downturn of 2008, we’re making more money than before. Less lives are taken in war, literacy is increasing, and more women are in positions of influence and power.
But, and there seems to always be a but, the study’s data show that generally we’re not as happy or as satisfied as we’ve been in recent years. In fact this slide appears to coexist with the development of social media. There’s a correlation to the increase in the amount of folks who are online and the declining line on the z axis of those who are less happy.
I digress, though. Despite recent findings that Facebook is depressing college-age users, I’m not saying that social media is responsible for our happiness or lack of it. I am saying that tweets, posts and feeds can scaffold our own automatic attitudinal responses. When our own opinions and positions are bolstered by what can appear to be a majority of others, we can easily become entrenched in a skewed perspective of reality.
Like the end of the world. According to scientists, that’ll be another billion years, and they predict after that time only certain microbes will exist, literally going to shit.
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