We talked a bit more about imperialism. The reasons for imperialism: racist "White Man's Burden", expanding markets, closing of frontier, competition with Europe, patriotism, etc. I showed a couple of maps of European imperialism in Africa and Asia.

For all of you TV watchers: "60 Minutes" is devoting an entire segment to Michael Moore this Sunday, Feb. 16, on CBS, 7pm ET/PT
CBSNEWS link

We went to the Multnomah County Library downtown today to research projects/themes. Most groups at least got some ideas. Some groups made a lot of progress.

Current events today. I had hoped to finish the Hawaii video, but there were many relevant events to talk about and questions to deal with regarding our school year.

I handed out an amazing essay by David James Duncan and an interview with Kurt Vonnegut which I highly recommend. I only gave it to interested students, it's not required.

I read an excellent speech given by Arundhati Roy at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil a couple of weeks ago. She spoke passionately about corporate globalization, more properly called Empire and how we must unite and lay seige to it in the name of justice. Roy won the Booker Prize for an amazing novel called The God of Small Things and has been extremely active in writing and speaking against corporate globalization and for grassroots movements, particularly regarding hydroelectric dams in the southwest of India. I have great respect for as well as amazement at her writing.

I encourage everyone to read it (again), print it, distribute it, talk about it, do something about it. Here's a link: Arundhati Roy's written speech

We spent a while talking about what a budget is, from personal to national. We looked at the White House proposed budget which can be found in full at the Office of Management and Budget

Assignment: define these words--discretionary spending/budget, regressive tax (& example), progressive tax (& example), deficit, balanced budget, unearned income.
Read the Robert Landauer column on the back side of the discretionary budget sheet I passed out. If you didn't get it, here it is: Landauer's column