Conversations: Readings for Writing Book

Rhetorical Contents     xxxi
Preface     xlvii
Introduction     1
Why Write?     2
How to Read this Book-And an Example     6
Visual Conversations: Reading Images as Texts     16
Education     23
Introduction     24
Is Public Education Working?     27
Education (essay)     27
A Liberal Case for Vouchers (essay)     29
Do School Vouchers Improve School Performance? (essay)     34
To Each Its Own (essay)     42
The New Vocationalism: What It Is, What It Could Be (essay)     59
Making Public Schools Business-Like...Again (essay)     73
Divide and Conquer: How Breaking Up Big High Schools Can Be the Key to Successful Education Reform (essay)     81
When School Choice Isn't (essay)     94
Home Schooling Debate: Is The Movement Undermining Public Education? (essay)     101
Visual Conversations 1
The Place(s) of Education: Educational Settings     115
What's College For?     120
Everyday Use (fiction)     120
College Isn't for Everyone (essay)     128
Doonesbury (cartoon)     133
The Challenge of Liberty (essay)     135
A Rationalefor Civic Education (essay)     145
Ads for Hofstra University and Seton Hall University (advertisements)     152
The Case for a Traditional Liberal Arts Education (essay)     154
What Does It Mean to Be Literate?     167
from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (memoir)     167
from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (slave narrative)     171
Mind the Gap: The Digital Divide as the Civil Rights Issue of the New Millenium (essay)     176
How Does the Empty Glass Fill: A Modern Philosophy of the Digital Divide (essay)     181
Understanding the Digital Divide from a Multicultural Education Framework (essay)     189
Media Matters     197
Introduction     198
Big Media: Who Owns the News?     202
Waging the Media Battle (essay)     202
Operating in the Public Interest or in Pursuit of Private Profits? News in the Age of Media Consolidation (essay)     210
Does Big Mean Bad? (essay)     221
Corporate Takeover of the Media (essay)     225
The Myth of Media Monopoly (essay)     229
Bottom-Line Pressures Now Hurting Coverage, Say Journalists (demographic study)     230
Across the Great Divide: Class (essay)     236
Alternative Media: A New Free Press?      251
Effects of Electronic Media on Democratic Attitudes (essay)     251
Engaging the Electronic Electorate (demographic study)     263
Blogworld and Its Gravity (essay)     273
The Web Rewires the Movement (essay)     283
Dictatorship.com (essay)     292
Visual Conversations 2
Virtual Communities, Real Politics in the New Media     303
Two-Way Media: Is Talk Radio Good for Democracy?     307
Opening Up the Conversation (demographic study)     307
The Illusion of Consumer Participation: The Case of Talk Radio (essay)     313
Talk Radio: Media Hate "Democracy in Action" (essay)     317
Talk, Radio and Democracy (essay)     320
Talking Back to Talk Radio: Fairness, Democracy, and Profits (essay)     323
Gender     331
Introduction     332
How Can Gender Be Defined?     336
Sojourner Truth, Ain't I a Woman (speech)     336
The Men We Carry in Our Minds (essay)     337
Trifles (play)     341
What it Means to Be Gendered Me: Life on the Boundaries of a Dichotomous Gender System (essay)     353
The Abolition of Sex (satire)     373
Visual Conversations 3
Images of Gender in the Arts     377
Is English Sexist?     381
Bitch (essay)     381
CrossTalk (essay)     390
Why Sexist Language Matters (essay)     395
Genderator I.I: A Modish Proposal (satire)     401
"You'll Just Love the Way He Handles" (cartoon)     406
Does Pornography Cause Harm to Women?     407
Majority Report (report)     407
Minority Report (report)     412
Let's Put Pornograpy Back in the Closet (essay)     414
Pornography and the New Puritans (essay)     417
Reply to John Irving (letter to the editor)     426
The Perils of Pornophobia (essay)     430
The Painful Truth About Today's Pornography-And What Men Can Do About It (essay)     435
Revolutions in Marriage and Family     443
Introduction     444
What Is a Marriage?     448
Is Traditional Matrimony Going Out of Style? (report)     448
Can Marriage Be for Life? (sociological study)     460
The Problem with Marriage (essay)     468
Marriage: What Social Science Says and Doesn't Say (report)     483
Bringing Democracy Home (report)     486
Marriage (poem)     493
What Is a Family?     499
Why I'm Not "Pro-Family" (essay)     499
The Case for Staying at Home (report)     505
American Families Are Drifting Apart (essay)     513
Dan Quayle Was Right (essay)     519
Making Single Motherhood Normal (essay)     548
Single Motherhood: A Response to Iris Young (essay)     557
Rights and Responsibilities: A Response to Iris Young (essay)     560
Response to Elshtain and Steinfels (essay)     563
Will America Accept Gay Marriages and Gay Families?     568
The Rise of the Gay Family (report)     568
Americans Must Preserve Institution of Marriage (essay)     574
Whose Family Values? (essay)     576
Showing Us the Power of Marriage (essay)     580
Is Marriage the Answer? (essay)     583
The Trouble with Gays (cartoon)     589
Here Comes the Groom (essay)     590
The Closet Straight (essay)     594
Evan's Two Moms (essay)     601
The Limits of Family (essay)     603
Visual Conversations 4
Gay Marriage Comes Out of the Closet and into the Public Eye     606
Civil Liberties and Civic Responsibilities     611
Introduction     612
Conformity and Activism: What Does Democratic Citizenship Require?      617
from Politics (philosophical treatise)     617
from Democracy in America (report)     621
Civil Disobedience (essay)     631
Letter to Lord Irwin (letter)     646
Public Statement by Eight Alabama Clergymen (public letter)     651
Letter from Birmingham Jail (public letter/essay)     654
Motherhood, Activism, and Social Reform (essay)     668
Immigrants Hit the Road for Civil Rights (report)     674
The Rise of the New Civic Revolutionaries: Answering the Call to Stewardship in Our Times (essay)     680
What Is the Scope of Government Regulation I? Legislating Information, Guns, and Tobacco     691
The Right to Privacy (essay)     691
The Need for Information Awareness (essay)     694
Dawn of the Daddy State (essay)     699
Can We Curb the Privacy Invaders? (essay)     704
Resolution on the USA Patriot Act and Related Measures That Infringe on the Rights of Library Users (public resolution)     711
Gun Control Is Constitutional (essay)     713
Responses to Robert Goldwin (letters to the editor)     716
Women Against Gun Control (webpage)     719
Don't Edit the Bill of Rights (advertisement)     720
The Necessity of Global Tobacco Regulations (essay)      722
Nazi Tactics (essay)     724
Visual Conversations 5
The Varied Faces of Activism     728
What Is the Scope of Government Regulation II? Who Is Watching What We Eat?     732
Fast Food Nation (essay)     732
In Supersized World, Regulatory Indigestion (essay)     736
Fast Food and Personal Responsibility (essay)     738
Those Extra Pounds-Are They Government's Business? (essay)     741
Whose Business Is It? (essay)     745
Obesity Awareness Campaign Needed, but Regulations Won't Curb Fast-Food Appetite (essay)     747
How Does Social Class Affect Crime and Punishment?     750
Reflections on Crime and Class (essay)     750
Crime as Social Control (essay)     754
Congress Should Pass Legislation to Lower Federal Crack Cocaine Sentences (essay)     762
Congress Should Not Lower Federal Crack Cocaine Sentences (essay)     766
from The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison (sociological study)     770
The Battle Against White-Collar Crime (essay)     787
Science and Society     795
Introduction     796
Is Our Faith in Science Justified?     800
from Gulliver's Travels, Book 3, Chapter 2 (satire)     800
The Scientific Mystique (essay)     807
Science Is a Social Enterprise (essay)     821
Science vs. Religion: The Challenge of Interpretation (essay)     824
Is Genetic Engineering a Threat or a Moral Imperative?     830
The Moral Clone (essay)     830
It Came from the gene Lab (report)     834
Biotechnology and World Hunger (essay)     838
Open Letter from World Scientists to All Governments Concerning Genetically Modified Organisms (public letter)     844
Super Organics (report)     855
Address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention (speech)     863
Ron Reagan Wrong on Stem Cells (essay)     866
Support Stem Cell Research (photograph)     867
Don't Clone Ron Reagan's Agenda (essay)     869
At What Price Wilderness?     873
Save Hetch Hetchy Valley! (essay)     873
A Wilderness Letter (public letter)     880
The Trouble with Wilderness (essay)     886
Response to William Cronon (essay)     913
Visual Conversations 6
Picturing the Landscape     918
Credits     921
Author/Title Index     927