Controversial
Issues
Here is a list of controversial issues
to get you started on your assignment. The goal of this list is
to provide you with ideas that are different than the usual selections.
Once you've decided on a topic, you should avoid simply telling
about it, ie: avoid giving a history of the topic.
- What are the pros and
the cons of the viewpoint you are researching
- Compare and contrast
your side with that of the opposing side
Again, avoid simply giving a history
of your controversy. This could be considered plagiarism if you
do not bring a unique viewpoint to your work.
Avian Flu Pandemic:
“The World Health Organization now warns that avian flu is
on the verge of mutating into a super-contagious form that could
travel
at pandemic velocity, killing up to 100 million people within two
years. In The Monster at Our Door: the global threat of avian
flu by Mike Davis… our foremost urban and environmental critic
reconstructs the scientific and political history of this viral
apocalypse in the making, exposing the central roles played by
burgeoning slums, the agribusiness and fast-food industries, and
corrupt governments” (Amazon Book Description).
“Baby Business”:
“Despite the ambiguities, [the baby business] is a big market. Fertility
procedures in the United States alone accounted for over $3 billion in 2002 and
have mushroomed from there. The Baby Business: how money, science, and politics
drive the commerce of conception is the first book to cast a probing eye on this
complicated and fascinating sector and explore it specifically as a business.
Still in its infancy, this industry
includes stem cell research, human cloning, surrogacy, egg swapping, cross-border
adoption, "designer babies," and gender selection” (Publisher
Description).
Biodiesel:
In Biodiesel : growing a new energy economy, “Greg Pahl’s
essential new book explores the history and technology of biodiesel,
its current use around the world, and its exciting potential in
the United States and beyond. While biodiesel is not the answer
to all our energy problems, it is an important step in the long
overdue process of weaning ourselves from fossil fuels” (Amazon
Book Description).
Cameras
in the courtroom:
“Why the courts, including the Supreme Court, have traditionally
excluded cameras is fully covered, and an historical perspective
on televised trials is provided” (Barnes and Noble website).
Check out Cameras in the Courtroom: television and the pursuit
of justice by Marjorie Cohn and David Dow.
Campaign Finance:
How about a system where contributions must all be made anonymously
so that the politicians will not be able to be influenced by big
business and other important figures? That is the system that
Ian Ayres and Bruce Ackerman provide in Voting With Dollars:
a new paradigm for campaign finance.
Censoring Music:
“Inhibitions and censoring [of music], it is argued, stem from adult concerns
for a healthy functioning society and from anxiety about the impact of sexual
explicitness and uncontrolled behavioral expression on adolescents. This work
attempts to explain why societal intolerance has a pattern of limiting the lyrics
and sounds of rock and rap music” (Amazon Book Description). Read Bleep!
censoring rock and rap music by Betty Houchin Winfield for more information.
Charter Schools:
In The school choice hoax : fixing America's schools, Ronald Corwin “argues
that the autonomy granted to choice schools has been a counterproductive
dead end. Its authors see no proof that freedom has produced the
outstanding results that charter school advocates promised. Nor has
the competition from charter schools spurred the improvement in public
schools that charter advocates predicted. Instead, charter schools
and education vouchers promoted competition among schools that should
be cooperating. Overburdened public school districts are faced with
rivalry from schools that are merely duplicating conventional programs
and competing for some students while ignoring others” (Amazon Book Description).
Child labor:
The book Children For Hire: the perils of child labor in the
United States (by Marvin Levine) “…finds that
child-labor laws at national and regional levels are not consistently
enforced, if they exist at all. Work environments are often of
higher risk to young people, whose physical or mental developmental
levels or needs are not matched with the demands of a task, resulting
in death or disabilities that limit their development and educational
opportunities” (Amazon).
Child Soldiers:
“More than 250,000 children have fought in three dozen conflicts
around the world, but growing exploitation of children in war is
staggering and little known. From the "little bees" of
Colombia to the "baby brigades" of Sri Lanka, the subject
of child soldiers is changing the face of terrorism” (Amazon
Book Description). Learn more in Innocents lost : when child
soldiers go to war by Jimmie Briggs.
Civil
Liberties:
Since September 11, the government feels that tapping into our
civil liberties is the way to fight and eliminate terrorism. The
book Terrorism and the Constitution: sacrificing civil liberties
in the name of national security by David Cole et. al, says
that this is not necessary and explains ways to combat this problem
without sacrificing our rights.
Cyberspace regulation:
How should the internet be organized? What should its structure
be? Who should regulate commerce, property, and privacy? All these
questions are covered in Regulating Cyberspace: the policies
and technologies of control by Richard A. Spinello.
Dinosaurs:
“Did
dinosaurs walk on their bellies like crocodiles? Were they warm
or cold-blooded? Were they ancestors of the birds? Did a cataclysmic
asteroid kill them off? How accurate is evolution theory and the
estimated age of the earth?” (VOYA – Kevin Beach/Barnes and Noble
website). Learn much more in The great dinosaur controversy
: a guide to the debates by K. M. Parsons.
Drug
Tests (in the workplace)
In
Pissing on demand : workplace drug testing and the rise of
the detox industry , author Kenneth D. Tunnell discusses how
“d rug testing has become the norm
in many workplaces. In order to get a job, potential employees
are required to provide their urine for testing... this book is
required reading for anyone concerned with social control, privacy,
and workers' rights” (Amazon product description).
Education Myths:
In Education Myths: what special interest groups want you to
believe about our schools, and why it isn't so, “Jay
Greene takes on the conventional wisdom and closely examines
eighteen myths advanced by the special interest groups dominating
public education. In addition to the money myth, the class
size myth, and the teacher pay myth, Greene debunks the special
education myth (special ed programs burden public schools),
the certification myth (certified or more experienced teachers
are more effective in the classroom), the graduation myth (nearly
all students graduate from high school), the draining myth
(choice harms public schools), the segregation myth (private
schools are more racially segregated), and several more” (Amazon
Book Description).
Education Vouchers:
In The education gap : vouchers and urban schools “the
authors review the significance of state and federal court decisions
as well as recent scholarly debates over choice impacts on student
performance. In addition, the authors present new findings on
which parents choose private schools and the consequences the
decision has for their children’s education. Updated and
expanded, The Education Gap remains an indispensable source of
original research on school vouchers” (Amazon Book Description).
Epidemics/Plagues:
“Containing riveting accounts of barely averted catastrophes
(including outbreaks of West Nile virus, SARS, and hantavirus),
the book
Microbe : are we ready for the next plague by Alan P. Zelicoff
M.D., examines the disjointed, ineffective system we all rely
upon to keep us alive and healthy. More important, the book presents
a solution to stop outbreaks and minimize the impact of an epidemic” (Amazon
Book Description).
Eugenics:
“The explosive true story of America’s century-long
attempt to create a master race… Funded by America's leading
corporate philanthropies, such as the Carnegie Institution and
the Rockefeller Foundation, and entrenched in classrooms across
America, eugenicists sought to eliminate social "undesirables”
(Amazon book description). Learn more in War Against the Weak:
eugenics and America’s campaign to create a master race by
Edwin Black.
Forced Sterilization:
“In 1927, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of sterilizing a twenty-one-year-old
woman thought to be ‘feebleminded’… This precedent led to the
escalation of eugenics in the United States, and the coercive sterilization of
more than sixty-five thousand people (many of whom were poor women). [The author]
deftly combines analysis of how the American quest for moral and social purity
prepared people to accept pseudo-science as a basis for national policy” (New
Yorker Review). Read more in Better for all the world : the secret history
of
forced sterilization and America's quest for racial purity by Harry Bruinius.
Genetically
Engineered Food:
Do you know what you are eating? Eating in the Dark: America’s
experiment with genetically engineered food by Kathleen Hart
“reveals the process by which American government agencies
decided not to label genetically modified food, and not to require
biotech companies to perform even basic safety tests on their
products” (Amazon book description).
Health care/insurance:
“The United States today is the only economically developed
county in which more than a third of the population is uninsured
or under-insured. In At the Front Lines of Medicine: how the
health care system alienates doctors and mistreats patients…
and what we can do about it, Dr. Waitzkin describes the bold
action needed if the United States is to improve the health prospects
of its people” (Barnes and Noble website).
Health Care Rationing:
“Should Americans decide to rein in the growth of health
care spending… they will be forced to consider whether
to ration care for the well insured - a prospect that is odious
and unthinkable
to many. In Can We Say No: the challenge of rationing health
care, Henry Aaron and William B. Schwartz argue that sensible
health care rationing not only can save money, but that it can
improve general welfare and public health, as well. The book
reviews Great Britain's experience with health
care rationing” (Amazon Book Description).
Human Nature:
Is human nature obsolete? : genetics bioengineering, and
the future of the human condition by Harold W. Baillie “poses
the overarching question of what it is to be human against
the background of these current advances in biotechnology.
Its perspective is philosophical and interdisciplinary rather
than technical; the focus is on questions of fundamental ontological
importance rather than the specifics of medical or scientific
practice” (Amazon Book Description).
Human
Rights – Children:
In Children's human rights : progress and challenges for children
worldwide, Mark Ensalaco explains that “the details are
disturbing, the message powerful: We must vigorously extend
the universal declaration of human rights to the most vulnerable
humans of all--the children of the world… Children's
human rights are regularly violated around the world. Child
soldiers, child slavery, and child prostitution are some of
the more graphic examples this books deals with, but hungry,
sick, and orphaned children are equally at risk and more prevalent.
In the United States, children suffer similar abuses, but some
are unique to the United States justice system. Unlike most
of the rest of the world, the U.S. is a well-developed western
nation in which juvenile offenders can be tried as adults and
subjected to capital punishment” (Publisher Description
from Barnes and Noble website).
Immigration Prisons:
“Before September 11, 2001, few Americans had heard of
immigration detention, but in fact a secret and repressive prison
system
run by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has existed
in this country for more than two decades. In American Gulag:
inside U.S. immigration prisons, prisoners, jailers, and whistle-blowing
federal officials come forward to describe the frightening reality
inside these INS facilities. Journalist Mark Dow's on-the-ground
reporting brings to light documented cases of illegal beatings
and psychological torment, prolonged detention, racism, and inhumane
conditions” (Amazon Book Description).
Immigrant Unions:
“In recent years, New Yorkers have been surprised to see
workers they had taken for granted—Mexicans in greengroceries,
West African supermarket deliverymen and South Asian limousine
drivers—striking, picketing, and seeking support for better
working conditions. Suddenly, businesses in New York and the
nation had changed and were now dependent upon low-paid immigrants
to fill the entry-level jobs that few native-born Americans would
take. Immigrants, Unions, and the New U.S. Labor Market tells
the story of these workers' struggle for living wages, humane
working conditions, and the respect due to all people” (Amazon
Book Description). Find out more in Immigrants, unions, and
the new U.S. labor market by Immanuel Ness.
Incarceration:
“After overseeing the largest city jail system in the country,
[author] Michael Jacobson knows first-hand the inner workings
of the corrections system. In Downsizing Prisons, he convincingly
argues that mass incarceration will not, as many have claimed,
reduce crime nor create more public safety. Simply put, throwing
away the key is not the answer” (Amazon Book Description).
Find out more in Downsizing Prisons: How to Reduce Crime And
End Mass Incarceration.
Individual Rights / Patriot Act:
In How patriotic is the Patriot Act? : freedom versus security
in the age of terrorism, author “Etzioni concerns
himself less with the Patriot Act itself than with broader
questions
of how well in a post-9/11 environment American society can
protect citizens against terrorist threats without damaging
or discarding those individual rights that are the nation's
legal hallmarks. He enumerates a host of challenges that modern
technology poses to individual freedoms. His views on dealing
with attacks on public health from biological weapons include
some potentially controversial remedies. In assessing likely
threats and benefits from national identification cards, Etzioni
lays bare the ubiquity and uselessness of state-issued driver's
licenses, currently the nation's most accepted certificate
of identity and its most often counterfeited” (Booklist).
Intelligent
Design:
In
the book Uncommon dissent : intellectuals who find Darwinism
unconvincing , “author William
A. Dembski brings together essays by leading intellectuals who
find one or more aspects of Darwinism unpersuasive… open-minded
inquirers whose challenges pose serious questions about the viability
of Darwinist ideology” (Amazon Product description).
Internet,
control of:
Who controls the Internet? : illusions of a borderless world by Jack Goldsmith
is “about the fate of one idea--that the Internet might liberate us forever
from government, borders, and even our physical selves. We learn of Google's
struggles with the French government and Yahoo's capitulation to the Chinese
regime; of how the European Union sets privacy standards on the Net for the entire
world; and of eBay's struggles with fraud and how it slowly learned to trust
the FBI. In a decade of events the original vision is uprooted, as governments
time and time again assert their power to direct the future of the Internet.
The destiny of the Internet over the next decades, argue Goldsmith and Wu, will
reflect the interests of powerful nations and the conflicts within and between
them” (Amazon Book Description).
Invading Iraq:
“Through our own mistakes, the perfidy of others, and Saddam’s
cunning, the United States is left with few good policy options
regarding Iraq” (Barnes and Noble website). Check out The
Threatening Storm: the case for invading Iraq by Kenneth Pollack.
Liberal Media:
The book What Liberal Media? The truth about bias and the news by
Eric Alterman, argues this point: “the conservatives
in the newspapers, television, talk radio, and the Republican
party are lying about liberal bias and repeating the same lies
long enough that they've taken on a patina of truth” (Amazon
review). Medical Malpractice Myth:
Most people say medical malpractice litigation is the cause for
rising insurance costs. However, in The medical malpractice
myth, author Tom Baker “counters that the real problem
is ‘too much medical malpractice, not too much litigation,’ and
that the cost of malpractice is lost lives and the ‘pain
and suffering of tens of thousands of people every year’ —most
of whom do not sue. Baker argues that the rise in medical premiums
has more to do with economic cycles and the competitive nature
of the insurance industry than runaway juries. Finally, Baker
offers an alternative in the form of evidence-based medical
liability reform that seeks to decrease the incidence of malpractice
and also protect doctors from rising premium costs” (Publisher’s
Weekly).
Medicating
children:
Some say we overmedicate our children without knowing if it has
immediate or long lasting negative effects. But if your child
had a problem that could not be controlled, wouldn’t you
want to medicate him or her in hopes of helping them out? It is
a tough position, so check out Should I Medicate My Child?:
sane solutions for troubled kids with and without psychiatric
drugs by Lawrence H. Diller for more information.
Minimum wage:
Is minimum wage too low? How is one expected to survive on $5.75
per hour? Get an insider’s perspective on what it’s
like to live off of jobs that pay minimum wage in Nickel and
Dimed: on (not) getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich.
Also check out The Case of the Minimum Wage: competing policy
models by Oren M. Levin-Waldman.
Monogamy:
Interested in the debate over whether monogamy is what nature
intended? Find out the biological perspective by reading The
Myth of Monogamy: fidelity and infidelity in animals and people
by David Barash and Judith Lipton.
Motherhood:
The
mommy myth : the idealization of motherhood and how it has undermined
women by Susan Douglas and Meredith
Michaels talks about “the media's obsession
with motherhood and the impossible standards which that obsession
promotes. Romanticized, commercialized, sensationalized, and demonized
by turns, today's mothers are damned if they work and damned if
they don't” (Amazon editorial review).
National
Health Care – lack
of:
In
One nation, uninsured : why the U.S. has no national health
insurance the author
"addresses, and discredits, the conventional theories explaining
this failure... She argues
that
reform has failed because of the ability of vested interests--insurance
companies, the small-business lobby, the AMA, among others--to
mobilize vast resources to make their case before consumers,
and especially legislators, the result being that one in three
Americans is uninsured over any given two-year period” (Booklist).
Nature vs. Nurture:
What if it were not one OR the other? Perhaps the key to understanding
human life and development is seeing how nature and nurture interact
during every single stage of biological development. Read more
about this in The Dependent Gene: the fallacy of “nature
vs. nurture” by David S. Moore.
Newspaper
Reporting Biases :
The
authors, Howard Friel and Richard Falk, have writen the book The
record of the paper : how the New York Times misreports US foreign
policy , in which they “use substantial
research to argue that the Times has long ‘ignor[ed]
international law when it applies to US foreign policy' and that
the paper has willfully ‘failed to make a serious effort to expose
government deception and misconduct'” (Publisher's Weekly). Students
interested in journalism or communications should check out this
book and find out what the controversy is all about.
No
Child Left Behind:
“Popham
[the author], an expert on educational testing, explains the implications
of the controversial No Child Left Behind (NCLB) policy. The law
calling for expanded student testing and stricter accountability
standards, tying federal funds for disadvantaged children to school
performance, has called into question the ways we measure the
success or failure of schools” (Booklist review). Read more in
America 's "failing" schools : how parents
and teachers can cope with No Child Left Behind by W. J.
Popham.
One
Child Policy ( China )
In
Only hope : coming of age under China 's one-child policy,
authour Vanessa L. Fong writes about "the
first generation of children born under China 's one-child family
policy is now reaching adulthood. What are these children like?
What are their values, goals, and interests? What kinds of relationships
do they have with their families? This is the first in-depth study
to analyze what it is like to grow up as the state-appointed vanguard
of modernization?” (Amazon product description).
Organ transplants:
Should alcoholics receive the same status as other people waiting
for donor livers? Should celebrities have easier access to organ
transplants? How about growing organs from the patients’
stem cells? These questions (and their answers) can be found in
Raising the Dead: organ transplants, ethics, and society
by Ronald Munson.
Outsourcing:
Concerned
about the American economy shipping jobs overseas? In Exporting
America : why corporate greed is shipping American jobs overseas
by Lou Dobbs, “he tells the full story, naming names,
providing the shocking statistics, and exploding the economic
myths that say this national epidemic is "good" for
us. Most important, he reveals how Corporate America isn't doing
all this on its own. Big Business and Washington are working together,
trading our nation's livelihood for short-term gains while they
undermine our very way of life” (Barnes and Noble Website).
Parole/Prisoner re-entry to society:
The book When Prisoners come home: parole and prisoner re-entry
by Joan Petersilia asks “what happens when a large percentage
of inner-city men, mostly Black and Hispanic, are regularly extracted,
imprisoned, and then returned a few years later in worse shape
and with dimmer prospects than when they committed the crime resulting
in their imprisonment?” (Amazon book description).
Peak Oil / End of Oil:
In A thousand barrels a second : the coming oil break point and
the challenges facing an energy dependent world, author Peter
Tertzakian “makes a convincing, layreader-friendly case
that the end of oil is nigh and it's time to get serious about
energy alternatives now that the world is at "the dawn
of a new energy age" that will pit the U.S. against China
in the struggle for oil. Tertzakian provides an excellent primer
on oil's history, uses, supply chains and politics, including
dozens of charts and graphs to illustrate the bleak outlook
for oil's future” (Publisher’s Weekly Review).
Placebo
Effect:
“Can
we really cure ourselves of disease by the power of thought alone?
Faith healers and alternative therapists are convinced that we
can, but what does science say? Contrary to public perception,
orthodox medical opinion is remarkably confident about the healing
powers of the mind… ” (Amazon product
description). Read more about this controversial issue in Placebo
: mind over matter in modern medicine by D. Evans.
Police and Racism:
In Are Cops Racist, “Heather MacDonald is one of
the few authors who attempts to justify current policing methods,
arguing that the truth about policing and issues related to race
is not known to the general public. She contends that the police
should be receiving accolades for all the good work they do; instead,
they are constantly attacked by the media (especially the New
York Times), which offer unsubstantiated claims that racial profiling
is running amok” (Library Journal).
Prescription
Drug Costs:
The
book Powerful medicines : the benefits, risks, and costs of prescription
drugs by Jerry Avorn is a
“comprehensive
behind-the-scenes look at issues that affect everyone: our shortage
of data comparing the worth of similar drugs for the same condition;
alarming lapses in the detection of lethal side effects; the underuse
of life-saving medications; lavish marketing campaigns that influence
what doctors prescribe; and the resulting upward spiral of costs
that places vital drug beyond the reach of many Americans” (Barnes
and Noble website).
Privatizing
education:
Do we move from state and local tax funded education to a system
where there are donations, vouchers, charter schools, and big
business supplying the money to build and operate these systems?
Find out in Privatizing Education: can the marketplace deliver
choice, efficiency, equity, and social cohesion? by Henry
Levin.
Public Schools and Religion:
In Does God belong in public schools, “Columbia law professor
Greenawalt tackles one of the truly intractable problems encountered
in applying the Constitution to public life. Under the First
Amendment, the government can neither establish religion nor
prohibit the free exercise of religion. How can these two rules,
which tug in opposite directions, be applied coherently to government-run
schools? Looking at cases that have come before the courts, Greenawalt
surveys the many contexts in which the proper place of religion
in public schools is at issue” (Publisher’s Weekly
Review).
Public versus private schools:
Is there really a discernable difference between the education
provided by public and private schools? Is it true, as advocates
of voucher plans assert, that market-driven education results
in improved educational practices, greater parental involvement,
and heightened student achievement? Not necessarily” (Amazon
book description). Read more in All Else Equal: are public
and private schools different? by Luis Benveniste.
Religion’s
place in America:
“How did the United States, founded as colonies with explicitly
religious aspirations, come to be the first modern state whose
commitment to the separation of church and state was reflected
in its constitution? Frank Lambert explains why this happened,
offering in the process a synthesis of American history from the
first British arrivals through Thomas Jefferson's controversial
presidency” (Amazon book description). Find out more information
in The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America
by Frank Lambert.
Religion and Public Schools:
In Does God belong in public schools, “Columbia law professor
Greenawalt tackles one of the truly intractable problems encountered
in applying the Constitution to public life. Under the First
Amendment, the government can neither establish religion nor
prohibit the free exercise of religion. How can these two rules,
which tug in opposite directions, be applied coherently to government-run
schools? Looking at cases that have come before the courts, Greenawalt
surveys the many contexts in which the proper place of religion
in public schools is at issue” (Publisher’s Weekly
Review).
Reverse
discrimination:
In Reverse Discrimination: dismantling the myth, Fred Pincus
“examines the nature and scope of ‘reverse discrimination,’
focusing on the question of whether white males are adversely
affected by affirmative action programs. Basing his results on
interviews and research, he finds that it is people of color and
women who continue to carry the burden of bias” (Barnes
and Nobel website).
School Desegregation:
In Forced to fail : the paradox of school desegregation, “Caldas
and Bankston provide a critical, dispassionate analysis of why
desegregation in the United States has failed to achieve the
goal of providing equal educational opportunities for all students.
They offer case histories through dozens of examples of failed
desegregation plans from all over the country. The book takes
a very broad perspective on race and education, situated in the
larger context of the development of individual rights in Western
civilization” (Amazon Book Description).
School Re-Segregation:
In The shame of the nation, “Kozol visited 60 schools in
11 states over a five-year period and finds, despite the promise
of Brown v. Board of Education, many schools serving black and
Hispanic children are spiraling backward to the pre-Brown era.
These schools lack the basics: clean classrooms, hallways and
restrooms; up-to-date books in good condition; and appropriate
laboratory supplies. Teachers and administrators eschew creative
coursework for rote learning to meet testing and accountability
mandates” (Publisher’s Weekly review).
School
Shootings:
The
book Rampage : the social roots of school shootings
by Katherine S. Newman isn't another study on how media violence
causes school shootings, or how “bullying” is the cause. This
book takes a sociological approach and studies the communities
of these schools: “ In a powerful and
original analysis, she demonstrates that the organizational structure
of schools ‘loses' information about troubled kids, and the very
closeness of these small rural towns restrained neighbors and
friends from communicating what they knew about their problems.
Her conclusions shed light on the ties that bind in small-town
America .” (Amazon product description).
Single-sex
education:
All Girls: single-sex education and why it matters by Karen
Stabiner “focuses on the intelligent and determined young
women who are being nurtured in classrooms where strong, independent
thinking is expected and cultivated” (Barnes and Noble website).
State writing assessments:
In The Testing Trap: how state writing assessments control
learning, George Hillocks “examines whether state writing
tests in Illinois, Kentucky, Oregon, New York, and Texas actually
improve students' ability to express their thinking in writing.
Ultimately, Hillocks argues that the majority of existing tests
actually have a harmful effect on the way students are taught
to write” (Amazon book description).
Supreme Court
Decisions:
"Conservatives want to
return to the eighteenth-century Constitution or to restore "the
Constitution in Exile," by
which they mean the Constitution as it existed before the administration
of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In Radicals in Robes: why extreme
right-wing courts are wrong for America, author Cass R. Sunstein
explains what this constitutional vision would mean. It would
endanger environmental regulations, campaign finance laws, and
the right to privacy... It would impose sharp new limits on Congress's
authority to protect rights” (Amazon Book Description).
SUV’s:
In High and Mighty: SUVs – the world’s most dangerous
vehicles and how they got that way, Keith Bradsher “makes
a powerful case that these vehicles are even worse than we suspect—for
their occupants, for other motorists, for pedestrians and for
the planet itself” (Barnes and Noble website).
Taxing accumulated fortunes:
In Wealth and our Commonwealth: why America should tax accumulated
fortunes by Bill Gates and Chuck Collins feel that “with
the repeal proposed by the Bush administration, we might be facing
the future that Teddy Roosevelt feared—where huge fortunes
amassed and untaxed would evolve into a dangerous and permanent
aristocracy” (Barnes and Noble website).
Teacher unions:
“It is no coincidence that the thirty-year decline in U.S.
K-12 education, and the simultaneous surge in education spending,
began at the same time that the modern teacher unions were created…
The agenda [of the unions] is not to provide better teaching in
schools; it is to provide more money and benefits for teachers
-- and, above all, for itself” (Amazon book description).
Find out more about this in The Worm in the Apple: how the
teacher unions are destroying American education by Peter
Brimelow.
Television,
Effect On Children:
In The other parent : the inside story of the media's effect
on our children, James Steyer “addresses the media's
influential presence in kids' lives as "the other parent." Without
demonizing the media, Steyer offers an in-depth look at the
effects of TV, video games, and the Internet on today's kids
and explains the lack of social responsibility in many media
companies as they cater to stockholders over children. Backing
up his convincing argument with dependable statistics, Steyer
discusses the consequences of exposure to sex, coarseness,
violence, and commercialism long before children are ready
to understand them and offers real-world solutions” (Library
Journal Review).
Transplant Organ "Business":
In Stakes and kidneys : why markets in human body parts are morally
imperative, author James Taylor “says legalizing the
current markets in human organs would relieve the increasing
shortage of human organs wanted for transplantation, and would
help end abuse and suffering among thousands of impoverished
people. He figures the biggest—really only major—hurdle
to overcome is an ethical unease about the rich buying parts
of the poor. He seeks to alleviate that unease in discussions
of whether the typical kidney vendor is forced to sell, constraining
options and kidney markets, a moral case for market regulation,
kidney sales and dangerous employment, human dignity and the
fear of commodification, and altruism and kidney procurement” (Barnes
and Noble Book Synopsis).
Violence
and Girls:
"In See Jane Hit: why girls are growing more violent and what
can be done about it, Dr. James Garbarino shows that the rise
in girls' violence is the product of many interrelated cultural
developments, several of which are largely positive. In a number
of ways… the cultural foot binding that has kept girls
from embracing their own physical power has been removed, which
is largely to be celebrated. But nothing happens in isolation,
and there's rarely such a momentous societal shift with absolutely
no downside. One problem is that girls aren't being trained to
handle their own physical aggression the way boys are: our methods
of child-rearing culture include all sorts of mechanisms for
socializing boys to express their violence in socially acceptable
ways, but with girls we lag very far behind” (Amazon Book
Description).
Water
(scarcity of resources):
“Examining the international water trade, damming, mining,
and aquafarming, Vandana Shiva, in Water Wars: privatization,
pollution, and profit, exposes the destruction of the earth
and the disenfranchisement of the world's poor as they are stripped
of their right to a precious common good” (Barnes and Noble
website).
Welform Reform
Proposal:
In In our hands : a plan to replace the welfare state,
the author Charles Murray says to reform the welfare system the
government should “give
$10,000 (to begin with) per year, tax free, to every adult over
21, with the stipulation that $3,000 of it be spent on health
insurance and the strong recommendation that $2,000 be invested
toward retirement income. Once an individual's earned income
reaches $25,000, surtax on the grant begins, and those making
$50,000 and more would pay back half the grant… After a
first few expensive years, the plan would develop much less expensively
than the present welfare system. Gone would be Social Security,
Medicare, and the rest, and everyone would have at least $5,000
annual discretionary income”.
Whistleblowing:
“Whistleblowers can ruin lives--and can save them. Is it
worth it? In Whistleblowing: when it works- and why,
Roberta Ann Johnson explores when and how--and to what effect--people
make the choice to blow the whistle” (Amazon book description).
Youth Gun Crime / Policies:
“In Language of the Gun, Bernard E. Harcourt recounts in-depth
interviews with youths detained at an all-male correctional facility
in the Arizona desert, exploring how they talk about guns and
what meanings they ascribe to them in a broader attempt to understand
some of the assumptions implicit in current handgun policies.
In an effort to understand the symbolic and emotional language
of guns and gun carrying, Harcourt interviewed dozens of these
incarcerated Catalina boys. What do these youths see in guns?
What draws them to handguns? Why do some of them carry and others
not? For Harcourt, their often surprising answers unveil many
of the presuppositions that influence our laws and policies” (Book
Cover).
Zero
Tolerance Policy (in school):
Much controversy surrounds the concept of punishing a student
the same way whether he/she bring a pocket knife to school or
a loaded gun. Does this policy actually help or harm the goal
of curbing violence in our schools? Read Zero Tolerance: resisting
the drive for punishment in our schools: a handbook for parents,
students, educators, and citizens by William Ayers, et. al.
Last updated
07/07/2006
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