VOL. II, No. 46

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Middle East Conference This Weekend!

This is the weekend of much-anticipated Civitas Middle East Conference. Over fifty students will be meeting at the Doubletree Club Hotel by the airport (map below).

We are truly excited about the discussion that will take place in our three committees: (1) Oil, Water, Power; (2) "Isms;" and (3) Peace. We will be looking at broader issues in the Middle East, brainstorming models for solutions, and then trying to apply them to specific "hot spots."

We will have an outstanding keynote speaker Friday evening, Jon Sawyer, Washington Bureau Chief of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Jon will be speaking about issues relevant to each committee and will draw upon his extensive research and travel throughout the Middle East.

We sent E-Mails to participants every day last week to provide more information on how to complete the entire pre-conference process. This includes information on registration, permission forms, payments, and research.

We extend our thanks to everyone who responded in a timely manner. We urge those who have not yet completed these obligations to do so ASAP.

Quickly, delegates need to: (a) submit the research form; (b) submit the permission form; (c) submit payment; and (d) provide a final verbal or E-Mail confirmation that he or she will attend the conference.

More information on this will be available through one or two more E-Mails that are being sent out in the next several days. Please look for these E-Mails.

Intern Bobbi Clemons (aka the "Office Monkey") has developed an outstanding on-line tutorial for research preceding the Civitas Mid-East Conference November 21-22. It is seven and one-half minutes long. It provides an outstanding visual illustration of how to do research on your country and its relationship to the issues that will be discussed in the conference. It demonstrates how to easily do the research and once you have written it up, simply "drop" it into the on-line form that you can submit to Civitas. The research is due on Wednesday, November 19, 2003. You can access the tutorial by clicking on the third link below.
Index to Middle East Conference
Directions to DoubleTree Hotel
Tutorial on Research for the Mid-East Conference

LOST & FOUND

Lost and found from the Wednesday, November 5 Middle School workshop was a hat -- or some sort of knitted headgear. If the item pictured at your right is yours or belongs to someone you know, please let us know by calling us at (314) 367-6480 or E-Mailing us at [email protected]

Survey on Fictionalized History on TV

Our polls may be interesting, but they are not that scientific. We rarely have more than a dozen respondents, and polls that are reliable and valid generally have over 1,000 responses. However, our surveys present opportunities for conjecture and speculation; nothing more. We would love to have more respondents. But here is a poor poll in itself. The question simply is "Who do you support for the Democratic nomination for president?" We will then give you the names of the nine candidates. Why is it a poor poll? Well, besides the small sample size that we will have, it also does not limit the pool of respondents to those whose thinking is valid for the poll. Suppose that the only people who respond are Republicans. Wouldn't they want the "weakest link" among the Democratic candidates to face President Bush? Similarly, if it was a poll about Republican candidates when the GOP did not have an incumbent in office, wouldn't Democrats be interested in "sabotaging" the survey. Thus, we offer you the "standard poll" of the day, but caution all of us to be wary of the results.
Link to An Example of a Poor Survey

Link to Poll on Civitas Intranet Site

Previous Survey Results (New)

This past week [now two weeks ago], CBS-TV announced that it would not proceed with a network presentation of their recently produced program, "The Reagans." While right wing pressure was certainly a factor in this decision, so was respect for a man living with Alzheimer's Disease as well as concern for the accuracy of the presentation. This past Sunday, we had two semi-fictionalized programs on network TV; one on Private Jessica Lynch, the other on Colorado kidnap victim Elizabeth Smart. Our question concerns the propriety of presenting such programs on network television. This is not a question of censorship. However, do you think that it is wise for television networks to present highly fictionalized versions of actual historical events?

Responses % #
1. Yes 0% 0

2. Yes, but only with disclaimers 0% 0

3. Neutral 0% 0

4. No 100% 11

5. Not Sure 0% 0

Total: 11

Clearly, the sentiment among our small sample is that network television should not broadcast fictionalized history. Some of our readers offered the following explanations:

Taylor Joerger; Rosati-Kain, 2004

I think that if a television network is going to show events that happened, then they should present them as they happened. To show a fictionalized account of an historical event skews the public's perception of that event and downplays the actual event.

Donald McLaren; Marquette, 1999; University of Chicago, 2003

They are designed to get people to watch a certain TV station. The more dramatic they make the story, the larger the audience. I don't think NBC or CBS cared at presenting the truth, if they did, the shows would not have aired at the same time. They made it a competition.

Aaron Craig; Sumner High School, Vice-Principal

I think it's a little unfortunate that most of us watch too much television. There is certainly a great deal of information that viewers may gather by watching television, however there is also a great deal of "junk" on the "boob tube." I don't think television programmers have been responsible enough with the powerful tool they control. Fictionalized history is usually too biased resulting often in incomplete history. Aaron

Additional Links

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Sample Resolution