Do you agree with the US Supreme Court on guns?

As reported in "The Supreme Court opens fire" in this week's Economist, in a controversial decision, the US Supreme Court on June 26 ruled that Washington D.C. laws banning gun ownership were unconstitutional. This means many laws throughout the US that prevent citizens from owning guns are no longer legal.
As the Court's ruling clearly shows, much of the argument rests on the meaning and the grammar, especially the punctuation, of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution. Grammar matters! In fact, the Court's ruling explicitly discusses such things as "its prefatory clause and its operative clause" and notes that it "does not limit the latter grammatically" (District of Columbia et al., petitioners v. Dick Anthony Heller, 2008, p. 3)

Do you agree with the court's decision? Why? Why not?
Do you think people should be allowed to own guns in a democratic country?
Do you think private gun ownership has greater advantages or disadvantages?
What do you think of the Court's supporting reasons?

Does Thailand allow private gun ownership? Should it?

By the way, the Court's decision was not unanimous, and a group of judges have also filed a dissenting opinion setting out the reasons for their disagreement. That dissenting opinion is also included in the reference cited.
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References:

The Supreme Court opens fire, (2008, June 26). [Electronic version]. The Economist. Retrieved on 30 June, 2008 from https://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11647127

District of Columbia et al. v. Heller, (2008, June 26). The Supreme Court of the United States. Retrieved 30 June, 2008 from http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf [The Court's opinion begins on page 4. of this pdf file.]

At only 787 words, the report in the Economist is short and not too difficult. At 64 pages (for the majority opinion only), the Court's actual decision is long, and the language is difficult.

Why do people write paragraphs of definition?

Having all just spent some time and effort, in fact a lot of time and effort, writing a paragraph of definition for the word culture, perhaps it would be a good idea to reflect a little on why writers write such paragraphs. It might even help your revision.

• How did the writer use her main idea about the meaning of abnormal in "What is Abnormal?" (Hartmann, p. 173-4)
• In what sort of essay might you use the paragraph of definition you are working on this week?
  What might the main idea of such an essay be?
  What sort of thesis statement might your paragraph about culture support? Can you suggest one or two thesis statements for such an essay?
• How might you use the main idea of your paragraph in that essay?
  I mean, what purpose might your main idea about the meaning of the word culture serve in an essay?

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References

Hartmann, P. (2007). Quest 2 Reading and Writing (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill ESL/ELT.

Implications for psychological therapy?

Over the past week, there have been articles in two magazines that I regularly read which it seemed to me to might have implications for at least some of the different types of psychological therapy that we have been looking at over the past week.
The first was an article in the Economist, "Evolution and genetics: The misfits" (2008) and the second was "Genes explain why Chihuahuas are so high-strung" published on the New Scientist website (Callaway, 2008). Both of these articles are summaries of research published in science journals. The New Scientist article reports on research led by Gordon Lark and published in Genetics (Jones et al., 2008). The article in the Economist looks at the findings of a study led by Dan Eisenberg.

Read the articles in both the Economist and New Scientist. What implications, if any, might these research findings have for the four different types of psychological therapy that we have been looking at?
Might it be important for some types of therapy, but not others? Which one(s)? Why?
Is it irrelevant to all of them?
Is it relevant to all of them?
Do psychologists need to take note of these sort of findings? Why? Why not?
???
This is a response writing, so any ideas you have are worth writing down. Try and write for about 15 minutes, or a bit longer if you type slowly. You can respond to my questions or to something a classmate has already posted.

Although the dopamine receptor research (Eisenberg, Campbell, Gray & Sorenson, 2008) is interesting and not extremely difficult, there is no need to read either of the original journal articles. I checked them to see exactly what they said, but you can write a perfectly good response to the question here without studying the research. It's a response writing activity, not a research paper.

If you come across something in your own reading that you would like to invite us to respond to, please feel free to post it.
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References

Callaway, E. (2008, June 21). Genes explain why Chihuahuas are so high-strung. New Scientist. Retrieved 23 June, 2008 from http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn14180

Eisenberg , D.T., Campbell, B., Gray P.B., & Sorenson M.D. (2008, June 10).
Dopamine receptor genetic polymorphisms and body composition in
undernourished pastoralists: An exploration of nutrition indices among nomadic and recently settled Ariaal men of northern Kenya. BMC Evolutionary Biology 2008, 8:173. doi:10.1186/1471-2148-8-173 (See note below re doi)
(There is a provisional abstract available at http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/8/173/abstract )

Evolution and genetics: The misfits. (2008, June 12). [Electronic version]. The Economist. Retreived June 23, 2008, from https://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11529402

Jones P., Chase K., Martin A., Davern P., Ostrander E.A. & Lark K.G. (2008, June / Epub 2008 May 27). Single-Nucleotide-Polymorphism-Based Association Mapping of Dog Stereotypes. Genetics 179(2):1033-44 Abstract retrieved June 24, 2008 from http://www.genetics.org/cgi/content/abstract/179/2/1033

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doi
doi stands for "Digital Object Identifier". It is a new system that becoming more common in referencing published work and which has now been adopted by the APA for use in reference citations. For more information see the DOI homepage or the doi entry on Wikipedia. You can easily find a doi referenced article by doing a Google search on the full identifier, for example, doi:10.1186/1471-2148-8-173 would lead you to the article I've referenced above.

Could you do it?

If you knew something was wrong, could you still do it?

I mean that you are sure enough to say of something: "I know this is not right." Could you still do something different to what you knew was the right thing? Or would you need to convince yourself first that what you were doing was actually OK for some reason? That is, would you be saying something like: "It's actually OK for me to do this because it will help my children," as you did something wrong?

I've written this as a Yes/No question, but a Yes/No response would obviously not be very satisfactory. Whether you are inclined to think the answer is "Yes" or "No", you're in good company. Socrates, and apparently Plato, thought it was not possible to act against our own moral knowledge. Plato presents this view most clearly in the words of Socrates in his Protagoras. Aristotle, on the other hand, clearly believes the opposite to his predecessors (Ethics, Book VII).

What are your ideas? Can (Do) people do what they know to be wrong?

Please feel welcome to post your ideas either as a comment to this post, or as a new post.
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References
Plato, Euthydemus, Protagoras, Gorgias, Meno. (n.d.). In the Perseus Project. Retrieved 14:53, June 21, 2008, from http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Plat.+Prot.+352b

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. (n.d.). In the Perseus Project. Retrieved 14:56, June 21, 2008, from http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Aristot.+Nic.+Eth.+1145b+1

Why do we cite sources? Why don't we cite?

We ran out of time this morning, but over the course of this term, the importance of sources will come up again and again. As you have probably already realised, some of your classmates wrote their paragraph about the van Gogh painting on page 165 of Quest without doing any research, whilst others did do some research. Both were perfectly acceptable approaches to the question, and both led to very good paragraphs. I was very happy with the variety in your answers.

Apart from the very specific questions in my first email this morning, and the equally specific questions we discussed in room 201, I have a more general question that you might like to think about and comment on here:

Why do writers cite sources?
What are the most important reasons?
What are not very important reasons?

This is PoR

Hi! everyone in class AEP/rw4


My name is Suteera Saranpattranon. You can call me "PoR". I graduated in Tourism Management Major from Mae Fah Luang University in Chiangrai where is the north of Thailand. This major learned about the theory of management to apply with tourism system suitably, which it isn't same as tourism industry at other university. I chose to study at AUA (AEP) because I want to improve and practice my English skills. I have plan to study in the master degree in Sweden this year. I proud to study with Peter who is a very good teacher,I hope he will support my English skills is better than. I will try to practice and improve its continuously.



Cheers!!!

A Bit about Peter

My full name is Peter Filicietti. Although I'm Australian, my last name is Italian. My great grandparents emigrated to Australia in 1880. They were the first people to settle in the area of northern New South Wales about 700 KM from Sydney. There are still a lot of Italian names in that area, but there is not much else left. The early immigrants grew grapes and made wine, but the winerys are all gone now.

My last name is a little difficult, so please call me Peter, that is much easier.
I've been in Bangkok for almost twenty years now, teaching here at AUA for most of that time.

My academic background is science and philosophy, with mathematics acting as a bridge. I began a science degree at Sydney Uni. majoring in physics and mathematics, but then changed to an Arts degree, so I could continue with the mathematics, but take up philosophy and a couple of languages.

It's me Nont ^_^ (Term 4/2008)

Hi,

If you find a nice (very) big man, it's me! Nont
The name might be strangely spelled. You should be thinking why there is "T" at the end since it must sound like "Non" anyway. Yeah, people like to be unique so do I, that's my reason haha. However, this "t" comes from my Thai name, guess what?

Getting to know my educational background, I hold a degree from Ru where I studied Mass Com. and English.

I'm now creating this blog in a computer room at AUA Radchadamri since I'm taking an AEP. I aim to practice and improve myself English skills as much as possible before my persuite in Master degree.

I hope this will be a good start on my practice in writing and hope that you will like it.
I love English, you love English so let's help each others. Shout at me and correct me if I make a mistake! And be friend++

Cheers,
Nont

Pong_Woranol Sattayavinij_AEP RW4/2008

My name is Pong, I graduate from the faculty of Architecture at King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang. I've been working as an architect in Thailand since 2002. I've been here, at AEP Class, once last year to prepare myself for TOEFL Test, I had a very impressive course here. I have a plan to do a master degree at the United States. I've got the university already and plan to leave Thailand around early august. This time, I'm here again to prepare my English skill for my incoming study.

Hong

My name is Hong. I graduated from Silpakorn university faculty of architecture. After that I worked as a Lighting designer in Lighting consultant company but now i quit for prepare my skill for being in role in master degree in germany. I'll go on this September. That's all my story now.

this is Vanda

hi everyone , i guess you already know me. i just graduated from high school. Now i have a free time because i waiting for my class begin at thammasat university on August so that make me why i come to study at AUA. i want to improve my english before i study at university because it is an international program

This is a:

Hello!! every one in my class.

My name is Athikom Srirathum. You can call me "a:".
I was graduated from faculty of Architecture, Chulalongkorn university in 2006.
I've been work as a lighting designer for 2 years, then I worked as architect. Now, I work as a freelance and preparing to take a Master degree in lighting design in Germany. I'll go to Germany on this september, as same as Hong (if you've already read her post).
I take an AEP course at A.U.A. because I want to improve my basic english skill,especially in speaking and writing skill.Last 2 days studied at here, I have learn a lot of english skill. I have to Thank you to Mr.Peter to be a great english teacher i've ever had.

It's my pleasure to be your classmate.
Thank you.