Where's Beef From? By Sarah

Beef2 from Sarah Foster on Vimeo.

Book Event Tonight!

Bob Jensen will be speaking tonight at 7 at Book People, 603 North Lamar, about his new book:

Arguing for Our Lives: Critical Thinking in Crisis Times, published by City Lights 

For more details:

http://www.bookpeople.com/event/robert-jensen-arguing-our-lives

Case Study Materials

Case Study 1: 9/11 and the Iraq War

Feb. 13 (W): Documentary "Buying the War"

http://vimeo.com/33033186

Feb. 15 (F): Watch "Fahrenheit 911"

Readings:
Framing the War on Terror by Reese & Lewis
Ignoring the lessons of 9/11 by Jensen
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/09-15

Feb. 20 (W): Debate on "What should the role of the press be in critical times?"

Case Study 2:  Walmart & Starbucks

Readings:
Flattener No. 7: Supply-Chaining -- from The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman
Introduction and p. 82-112 of China Crisis: The End of Cheap Labor -- from The Price of a Bargain by Gordon Laird

(Mon) Feb. 25: Documentary Mardi Gras: Made in China

(Wed) Feb. 27: Documentary -- China Blue

(Fri) March 1: Guest speaker on India-U.S. relations

(Mon) March 4: Discussion and guest presentation on media framing of Foxconn suicides

(Wed) March 6: Documentary -- Living with Coffee
http://youtu.be/BwYl69VstPw

Presentations:

A) How did U.S. politicians frame the job loss/outsourcing issue?
http://prezi.com/6ckpblqzybch/outsourcing/

B) Debate: Who's responsible for the inequality between workers in the third world and consumers in the first world?

Reading: Chapter 1 "Capitalism: Marvelous, Misunderstood, Maligned" from Conscious Capitalism by John Mackey & Raj Sisodia.

C) Advocacy groups and the Fair Trade movement.

Case Study 3: You Are What You Eat

(Wed) March 20: Documentary -- Soul Food Junkies

Readings: Fast Food Nation -- Introduction and Ch2 (p.42-57 on marketing to children)

Readings: Fast Food Nation -- Ch 5 (Why the Fries Taste Good), Ch 6 (p.139-144 on chicken nuggets and beef), and Afterwords: The meaning of mad cow

Presentations:

A) Is U.S. beef safe?
http://prezi.com/ksu_cdyixwny/is-american-beef-safe/

B) Food-related health issues among Americans: obesity, diabetes, heart disease
http://prezi.com/jm35tlzzfdme/fast-food-fast-profits/

C) In-depth research on a particular type of food as an extension of the readings: Soda

D) Generically modified food

E) Thoughts on Fish

Case Study 4: Sustainability (Food, Energy, & Paper Waste)

(Fri) April 5: Documentary Dive!

Readings:
1. Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill
2. Americans Waste $130 Billion a Year on Energy
3. Energy Waste Rebounds: Top 10 Energy Pigs in the Plug

(Fri) April 12: Presentations

A) The American lifestyle and our reliance on petroleum

B) Recycling in the U.S.: Are we doing a good job? (Paper, plastic, or batteries, etc.)

C) UT's energy policy and practice

Obesity in the South

People in the South are not so fat after all -- and they lie less

http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2013/04/people_in_the_south_are_not_so.html#incart_river_default

Tips for Final Projects

First world problems
http://first-world-problems.com/
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/first-world-problems

First world problems on Twitter
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23firstworldproblems

First world problems in graphics
http://20px.com/blog/2013/04/09/first-world-problems-part-1/#.UWT5fzemz65

First world problems read by third world people
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zm32ZPvGIYY



Vision of students today
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o

Vision of Japanese students today
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPW4Lawq6d4

Your Mobile Experience Is Not Theirs from cxpartners

Is the American Way of Life Sustainable?

The Global Food Waste Scandal
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/zh-cn/tristram_stuart_the_global_food_waste_scandal.html

You Are What You Eat

But do you know what you're eating?

Survey Finds That Fish Are Often Not What Label Says

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/21/us/survey-finds-that-fish-are-often-not-what-label-says.html 

Thoughts about Fish
http://beccco.blogspot.com/2013/03/blog-post_28.html

Food and health

U.S. Health in International Perspective

Shorter Lives, Poorer Health

The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest.

http://www.iom.edu/~/media/Files/Report%20Files/2013/US-Health-International-Perspective/USHealth_Intl_PerspectiveRB.pdf

http://sites.nationalacademies.org/DBASSE/CPOP/DBASSE_080393#deaths-from-all-causes

What's wrong with what we eat? (5 TED talks) 

http://www.ted.com/playlists/75/what_s_wrong_with_what_we_eat.html

Got coffee?

Living with Coffee
http://youtu.be/BwYl69VstPw

Side notes: Coca eradication in Colombia by the U.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_eradication

After the Harvest (6 min version)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRodCpXdvYU

Fair trade coffee and its controversies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_trade_coffee
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/business/media/green-mountain-coffee-begins-fair-trade-campaign-advertising.html?_r=0

How about Starbucks? 
http://www.starbucks.com/responsibility/sourcing/coffee

Hong Kong college students protested against having Starbucks on campus

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/24/business/as-fair-trade-movement-grows-a-dispute-over-its-direction.html?pagewanted=all

Consumerism and "Made in China"

How do American consumers view modern slavery?
http://d3mj66ag90b5fy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Consumer-Poll-USA.pdf


The case of Foxconn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn

Who's to blame -- Foxconn or Apple?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk-xqPKOxl4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3YFGixp9Jw

http://youtu.be/lhf0tgtXd8c

China Wage increase in recent years
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21646180-rising-chinese-wages-will-only-strengthen-asias-hold-manufacturing-tightening-grip

Apple Inc Sacks Chinese Supplier For Abusing Underage Labor (news clip)
http://youtu.be/dy-xz0WQWB0

Activists push Apple over work conditions
http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1159296/activists-push-apple-over-work-conditions

Debate: The role of the Press in Critical Times

The Buying the War documentary presents a strong case on the failure of the news media during the lead-up to the war in Iraq. But there's still room for debate on the role of the press  in critical times. Maybe these practices are not always as black-and-white as portrayed by this documentary?

Given insufficient information about what was going on in Iraq, the U.S. media acted upon collective values such as patriotism, social coherence, national security/interest, confidence building, and grief management as opposed to playing the watchdog role by questioning the administration or examining the officials' claims independently.

To help the class better understand the complexity of this media-government relationship, you could choose either side -- a) being in line with public opinion, government policy or b) being critical of the authorities or mainstream thinking when the "truth" is hard to get -- and make your argument.

Of particular interest is: What should journalists do if a similar scenario occurs again -- for example, North Korea just launched a nuclear test; China also is often portrayed as a major cause of America's economic problems (e.g., the so-called devaluation of its currency RMB).

North Korean Video Shows Obama in Flames

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/north-korean-video-shows-an-obama-in-flames/

9/11 and the War on Terror: Alternative Views and Public Opinion

Documentary: Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore (2004)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_9/11

Among the patriotic sentiment following 9/11, alternative views did exist --

Bob Jensen on 9/11 (published in Houston Chronicle on 9/12/2001) and UT president's response to it:
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0912-08.htm 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Jensen#Controversy
http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2001-09-28/83161/

Susan Sontag's essay (published in The New Yorker on 9/17/2001):
http://www.msgr.ca/msgr-3/talk_of_the_town_susan_sontag.htm

The World's response to 9/11: We Are All Americans
http://mentalfloss.com/article/28724/we-are-all-americans-worlds-response-911
http://www.pewglobal.org/database/?indicator=8&survey=1&response=Favor&mode=chart

President Bush Addresses the Nation (March 19, 2003)
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030319-17.html

International and domestic public opinion about the War in Iraq:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_on_the_Iraq_War

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_opinion_in_the_United_States_on_the_invasion_of_Iraq

Historical perspective:

Anti-war movement in the 1960s, which inspired social movements in places like Taiwan

-- John Lennon
"Imagine": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwUGSYDKUxU

-- Bob Dylan
"Blowin' in the Wind" 1963: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWwgrjjIMXA
2011 in Taipei: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150211742725540

-- Joan Baez
"Jerusalem": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTQmilVRJf0

How should the financial press inform the public?

What constitutes "good" business journalism?

Business reporting requires specialized knowledge about the economy and the industry. It is
more demanding than ‘‘writing about a football game, a school board meeting, a robbery,
new music fad, or a political campaign’’ because journalists must ‘‘understand the
intricacies of the field and write about them in clear, concise, intelligible prose’’ (Welles,
1991, p. xvii).

Challenges of business journalism:

Same economic data may support two disparate interpretations
Relatively few newspapers support highly critical stories or investigative projects against powerful forces (Welles, 1991, pp. xv, xvii).

Journalists are not even good at covering their own industry --

A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH? Examining how newspapers covered the newspaper ‘‘crisis’’

This study examines how the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and the New York Times framed the newspaper ‘‘crisis.’’

Newspaper journalists often fail to contextualize their reports with a comprehensive understanding of the economics of the newspaper industry,

They rely too heavily on the views of newspaper publishers and too little on empirical data.

The coverage tended to focus more on personnel numbers (50.7 percent) than key financial indicators such as advertising revenue (34.7 percent), company debts (25 percent), pricing strategies (11.1
percent), or cost structure (10.4 percent).

Coverage focused on short-term drama over long-term trends, lacked sufficient context, shifted blame away from newspapers themselves, invoked ‘‘death’’ imagery, and altogether struggled to capture a holistic portrayal of newspapers’ troubles.

But money matters:
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/opinion/cash-opt-for-transparency/nWFHN/

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/business/global/family-of-wen-jiabao-holds-a-hidden-fortune-in-china.html?pagewanted=all

The Quiet Crisis: From the American Perspective

About The World is Flat
http://www.amazon.com/World-Flat-3-0-History-Twenty-first/dp/0312425074

About Thomas L. Friedman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Friedman
http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/

On his new book
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdqe9xIA_zM

How do you compare this piece of writing with the one on the "smart power" of China?

The "smart power" piece: The smartness of China in terms of foreign policies, from an Asian's perspective

"The quiet crisis": The weaknesses of the U.S. in terms of competitiveness, from an American's perspective

Friedman's view has received attention from a large number of Americans since 2005.

Reflections on education and immigration policy.

The Tiger Mom controversy
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Hymn_of_the_Tiger_Mother

Stress management among children
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/magazine/why-can-some-kids-handle-pressure-while-others-fall-apart.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

Criticism:
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/6855:the-emperors-messenger-has-no-clothes-bel%C3%A9n-fern%C3%A1ndez-dresses-down-thomas-friedman

Our Neighbor: Canada

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada

The About portion of the Canadian government site:
http://www.canada.gc.ca/aboutcanada-ausujetcanada/menu-eng.html.

http://www.canadahistory.com/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/11/01/canadians-amused-by-american-threats-to-move-north-if-their-candidate-loses/

Power Shift: From US to China?

China: A "smart" (or sneaky) power but not a super power -- yet (do they want to be one?).
http://www.theonion.com/articles/report-china-to-overtake-us-as-worlds-biggest-assh,17277/
http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2013/02/01/exclusive-eric-schmidt-unloads-on-china-in-new-book/

Side note: What does the super power do?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2m3bI52dww  (In Korea)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhDSoAGoJJE (In Taiwan)

On the other hand, conservatives seem to be paying more attention to "Obama's bowing to dictators"
http://mediamatters.org/research/2010/04/13/conservative-media-continue-tired-obsession-wit/163106

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/obama-bowing-to-foreign-dictators--and-his-golf-game/2011/12/08/gIQAvANkfO_blog.html


More from Mahbubani on the West's Own Undoing: Inability to recognize the "structural weaknesses in the core value systems and institutions" --

• Budgetary discipline is disappearing
• Low savings and investment rates
• The work ethic is eroding, while politicians delude workers into believing that they can retain high wages despite becoming internationally uncompetitive.
• Leadership is lacking -- any politician who states hard truths is immediately voted out.
• Individual freedom -- great idea -- e.g., slavery ended. "But freedom does not only solve problems; it can also cause them." Since 1960, the US population has increased 41% while violent crime has risen by 560%. 

The U.S. public opinion on foreign policy
http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/01/28/is-obama-out-of-step-with-america-on-foreign-policy/

Reflection on his view about China being "smart": It is a "good" or "bad" government?

There's still hope.

The New China = ?

http://cn.nytimes.com/article/opinion/2013/01/30/c30tijuana/en/

The image of Amerca worldwide

So many critical minds in class! Let's rewind a bit.

Statistics tells!
 
Europeans vs. Americans: Even with shared cultural roots, their values differ.
(How about American vs. Canadians?)

How do people in other parts of the world view America?
http://www.pewglobal.org/database/?topic=1

Use of military force/Unilateralism
http://youtu.be/-23kmhc3P8U



Religion
Individualism
Cultural Superiority
Homosexuality


Younger generations share similar values. Why? Has Facebook played a role?

What do you mean by "progressive"? What kinds of ideas are more "progressive"? Why?

Vision of the Future: The Rest of the West

Thesis: Domination by the West in military, economic, political, and intellectual spheres during the past 200 years

"Western populations have been subjects of world history while the rest of the world have been objects."

Q: According to the author, the influence of the West is mos visible to someone who has traveled between cultures. Are we taking such domination for granted?

Anti-thesis: Globalization (interdependence -- economic, environmental, and demographic); the end of Western domination (not civilization)

Q: Is this sad?

Q: According to the author, the Third World should welcome globalization. What's your attitude toward globalization?

Synthesis: "Western ideas and technology will enable other societies to accumulate enough affluence and luxury to rediscover thier own cultural roots."

Non-westerners will have to decide which layers of influence to retain and which to abandon; the West will become a cosmopolitan society (like London)

Q: Under what circumstances would this come true? Are there alternative predictions?


---
Q: What has changed since this article was written in 2000?

The use of military force by the U.S.


The rise of China
http://www.theonion.com/articles/report-china-to-overtake-us-as-worlds-biggest-assh,17277/

The emergence of Al Jazeera English
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_English

http://www.aljazeera.com/

About Can Asians Think?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kishore_Mahbubani

http://www.theglobalist.com/AuthorBiography.aspx?AuthorId=645

http://video.answers.com/the-wests-fear-of-a-rising-asia-304230010

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore

http://www.amazon.com/Can-Asians-Think-Kishore-Mahbubani/dp/9814276014/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358964298&sr=1-1&keywords=can+asians+think

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel

Four decades of the Cold War era -- and before that, western countries dominated in China (e.g.,   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-Nation_Alliance )

The end of the Cold War: The West won because of the strength of its social, economic, and political institutions

Losing interest in certain players/exporting western values contingent on implementation of the democratic system

Sanctions for those who can't reach the western standard

Is such a strategy questionable?

What are the consequences?

What constitutes a "good government"?

Economic development vs. Democratic system, human rights, etc.

Can countries like China practice democracy successfully?

What is quintessentially American?

What comes to mind when you think of "America"?

• Freedom
• Football/NBA/baseball
• Fast food
• Suburbs/cities
• Corporations
• etc.

About freedom:

In what way do you feel free?

How about freedom of expression at critical times?
"Critical thinking became a mark not of conscientious citizenship but of dangerous disloyalty."
http://www.chron.com/opinion/outlook/article/Ignoring-the-lessons-of-9-11-2163629.php

How about from a global perspective?
http://www.nationsonline.org/maps/press-freedom-worldmap-2012.jpg

About sports:

Learning to Hate Longhorn Football by Prof. Bob Jensen


Ultimately, regarding "living a good life,"

"Since the mid 20th century,  the most important contribution of the United States is to provide endless imaginations for a good life, leading other societies to follow, learn, reflect, or criticize."

What is the price we pay for such a "good life"?
Are such lifestyles sustainable?
What can we do as individuals who are lucky enough to live a good life?

Let's blog!

This blog is the platform for us to exchange interesting ideas in this seminar!

A few things to do here:

1. Respond to readings

Please post a short response to assigned readings (as early as possible but no later than 3 p.m. the day before class).

The purpose is to provoke analytical/critical/creative thinking on issues to be discussed in class.

You should first read through the assigned readings and then share your thoughts/questions/examples with the class. If you have an online example, please include the link in your post.

Please label your posts using both "your screen name" (no need to use your real name, but be consistent throughout the semester) and the TITLE of the article.

Please write in short, concise manners so that it is easy to read online and in class.

You're expected to respond to 3/4 of the assigned readings throughout the semester.

Feel free to comment on your classmates' posts.


2. This is also the platform where we share online resources (links to Web sites) to each other. 

3. If you come across any interesting/relevant news stories worthy of our attention, please post the link here. We expect everyone to share one story at least once a month (i.e., at least 3 stories throughout the semester). Briefly explain why you think the story is important.

(If you have questions about the technical side of blogging, please let me know.)

Have a wonderful semester!