Week 4 -- The State of the Union Address

This week, President Obama will be giving his first State of the Union Address (hence the picture of the last State of the Union Address having a picture of President Bush in it!).  The State of the Union Address is the best chance for the President to address the nation about the his agenda for the forthcoming year.  Wtih the ailing economy, stalled out health care reform and this being President Obama's first State of the Union speech, it promises to be a both interesting and important speech in President Obama's career.

Here are some fun facts about various State of the Union Addresses throughout the years.

Your assignment this week is to watch the speech sometime before Thursday night, and post a 150 word post on your thoughts on the speech including whether you think his ideas were right or wrong.  Then before Sunday night, respond to one of your classmates comments either agreeing or disagreeing with what they said.  This post will also be about 150 words.

Link to both video and audio files (for podcasting, right click save the MP3 file to your iTunes):

http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2010-state-union-address

Thank you to all those who posted in real time tonight throughout his speech.  

First post: 150+ words due Thurs @ Midnight

Second post: 150+ words due Sunday @ 12pm. 

Week 3 -- Federalism

The debate between state and federal power has been around since our early founding. Throughout our history we've seen the National Government grow and assume more responsibility that may have been typically left to the states. During the 90s, we saw increasing devolution (delegating certain responsibilities back to the states), but it seems that we've moved back towards a stronger national government in the last decade. Do you believe that federalism, as we see it today, is practiced as the founders intended? Has the Fed. Gov't taken too much power? Should states be given more autonomy? When and why have we seen the national gov't expand? For this Blog Entry, I would like you to define Federalism, answer the above questions in paragraph format, and find one other article to link to your Blog entry that relates to federalism. (Please explain why you included this article and how it relates to your entry.)

350+ Words
Due 12pm on Sunday 1/24

Week 2: The Necessary Evil?

This week's blog post center's around a reading by Northwestern political science professor Garry Wills which can be found on the class website ( http://tinyurl.com/yzdm88x ) at the bottom under "Attachments" with the title of "Wills Reading."  If you wish to save the environment and not print out the reading, you can read it on your computer, and rotate the page by right clicking on it and choosing rotate (or "Shift" "Control" "+") if needed to line up the pages. .

In your post this week consider the following questions: we know that government is a necessary evil, but at what point does it become too evil...in other words, how much government is too much? Are there things/situations that the government is involved with that they shouldn't be? Are there areas in society where government isn't involved but should be? In your response please post which parts of the reading you found most interesting and thought provoking, and also if you have a question you would like pose to the author and or class, please do so.

Word count: 400+
Due 1/17/10 @ 12pm.

8th Congressional District Debate 1/10/10 @ 2pm.

The debate we have been planning for is this Sunday at 2pm in the GCHS Theater. 
If you are still interested in volunteering to help please plan on being there by 1pm....we still have many spots open.  Please plan on dressing appropriately. 

The debate will feature the Republican candidates for the 8th Congressional District and is sponsored by the League of Women Voters.  We have worked on the questions this week and some of them will be asked to the candidates.  Come interact with the people are vying for your vote...this is the first opportunity for you to start demanding more from your government.  We hope you can make it!

No need to comment on this post, it is for informational purposes only.

Week 1: Getting as Good of Government as We Demand

We started off our class with this week with the saying of  "we get as good of government as we deserve..." and this week's Chicago Tribune had an Op-Ed (Opinion/Editorial) raising awarness of what we have been getting, and how we can get better.

This week's blog assignment is to think about what you think the government we deserve would look like? Are we getting as good of a government as we deserve? Are we we getting as good of a government as we demand right now, in other words are people complacent with what we have right now or are we feeling hopeless to change it? What is the role of the average citizen in this ideal government? These are the underlying themes in this course and this first blog post with set the tone for the rest of the semester. 

Here is the article:
Chicago Tribune Editorial

Word count: 450+ words. 
Due: Midnight 1/8/10