Current Events Discussion Series

The current events discussion series examines news articles that appeared during the past week or so from individually preferred newspapers, magazines, television, radio, and computerized sources. Dr. Adelman encourages participating UL residents and UM students to debate issues from numerous perspectives, such as conservative and liberal political philosophies, generational differences and similarities, ethical and moral convictions, and so forth. All topics are fair game: abortion, assisted suicide, politics, war, crime, religion, sexuality, science, humor, history, business, the environment, drug and alcohol abuse, and more. For example, discussion of the tragic events in Darfur include comments on whether the apparent apathy of international concern is attributable at least in part to a numbing effect by the dismaying scope of AIDS-related deaths or to racist attitudes about what happens to Black people in Africa. Discussion of the prohibition era includes a UL resident’s recollection of a day during her teenage years when her parents feared for the life of her brother who had decided to topple a neighbor’s moonshine still in the mountains of West Virginia, as well as comments on the analogy to contemporary attitudes and laws about the use of marijuana. Discussion of the WWII internment of Japanese-Americans includes a UL resident’s memories of how she had endured life in one of those internment camps, as well as comments on the possible analogy to contemporary treatment of Arab-Americans in the context of U.S. reaction to militant Islamic terrorism, and the historical pattern of mistreatment of newly arrived immigrants in the U.S., England, France, Germany, and elsewhere. Discussion of use of the word, “nigger,” includes comments on the character, Nigger Jim, from the classic book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; the title of Dick Gregory’s autobiography, Nigger!; the word’s racist history; its prominence in contemporary popular music; and public pleas by the Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to ban its use in contrast to the possible need to use the word in the continuing war against racism. Discussion of Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic remarks include comments on such analogous situations as the impact of Roman Polanski’s pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor on the public reception of his Academy Award-winning film, The Pianist; Pete Rose’s exclusion (thus far) from the baseball Hall of Fame because of his gambling; and whether affirmative action is preferable to skin colorblind evaluation of applications for competitive admission to institutions of higher education. Discussion of former President Jimmy Carter’s book about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict includes comments on the dismaying array of public figures and media commentators who are willing to offer both pro and con opinions without having read the book; the profoundly disturbing dilemma of how to suppress suicide bombers without sacrificing someone’s civil liberties, no matter how much blame is shared by warring entities; and the growing chorus of academic critics who challenge the book’s accuracy.