Are Women Less Corrupt Than Men?

NPR's "13.7: Cosmos & Culture" blog is devoted to exploring the relationship between society and science. It is a mixture of physics and metaphysics if you will.

Today's article explores the scientific basis of the perception that women are somehow more virtuous and less corrupt than men: "Are Women Less Corrupt Than Men?"

It is an interesting thought, especially when the theory is applied to The Crucible. Is Abigail somehow more virtuous than the corrupt, greedy, and power-hungry men that have created the stifiling patriarchy, rife with hypocrisy and systematic oppression, the very society that she rebels against?

Read the article and respond to the following questions in the comment section of this post:

• What is the relationship between gender, government, and the perception of corruption?
• How does this article affect your perception of The Crucible? Is Abigail absolved of any of her guilt? Explain.

Your responses are due by midnight, October 3rd. Late responses will not count! 

Names and Their Meanings

Comedians Key and Peele created the following video for their recent appearance on Conan O'Brien:



The video makes light of the names of some professional athletes, and while it is intended to be humorous, it is far from being politically correct. To better put this in perspective, it is relevant to note that 20th century American culture does not have a monopoly on unusual names.

Slate Magazine just recently posted a humorous and telling article concerning some of the most unsual and occasionally downright spiteful Puritan names of yesteryear: "A Boy Named Humiliation". If this article sparks your interest, feel free to check out Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature, a comprehensive study of Puritan naming practices published in 1888.

What about your name? What does it mean? What does it reveal about you and your relationship to your family?

Please research the meaning of your own name using the Behind the Name website. If your first name does not deliver any results, try your last name, or ask your family members what the name means to them.

In the comment section of this post, respond to the following:

• Do you find Key and Peele's sketch offensive? Is it racist? Explain.
• Select what you feel is the most memorable Puritan name from the article from Slate Magazine and explain what the name reveals about the Puritan culture.
• Finally, explain the significance of your own first or last name. Please include information you find from Behind the Name or from your own research.

Responses are due by  midnight, this Friday (9/20). Also, I have emailed invites for you all to join the blog. Please create blogger accounts. If this is an issue, post an anonymous comment with your full name and see me in person on Monday.

The Shining City: The Idea of America

Salve, discipuli.

Eventually I will add your email addresses and make you all official members of my blog, but I have not yet done this. In truth, I am waiting to get my EPA.

Lazy, yes; dishonest, no, I am not.

Tomorrow I am giving you 9 questions on the overture from act 1 of The Crucible. You will have time to work on this on class, but if you do not finish tomorrow, I wanted you to have access to the text. It is available online: http://teacher.bsd405.org/murphybr/files/2011/11/the-crucible-act-1-and-intro.pdf. Your responses to these questions will be due Tuesday, September 10th. I am giving you a bit of time, so I am expecting some thoughtful responses supplemented with specific responses to the text itself.

Question #10 asks you to interpret an excerpt from John Winthrop's "A Model of Christian Charity." In the speech, Winthrop expresses his hope that the Massachusetts Bay Colony will serve as a "city upon a hill." This phrase, which itself is a biblical allusion, was mentioned by John F. Kennedy in a speech made in Boston prior to his inauguration  and by President Ronald Reagan in his farewell presidential address.

Take a look at this excerpt from the article, "Eisenhower, Kennedy, Reagan: Three Speeches, One Nation" (via http://www.politicsdaily.com/2011/01/19/eisenhower-kennedy-reagan-three-speeches-one-nation/):

Finally, in a passage that differentiates Reagan from many modern Republicans who invoke his name, The Gipper painted a poignant picture of what he had in mind when speaking of his metaphorical "shining city" on a hill.

"The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the 'shining city upon a hill.' The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. . . . He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free. I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still."

John F. Kennedy invoked John Winthrop, too. In fact, he spoke of the shining city in a speech in Boston two weeks before his inauguration. That is fitting, for Winthrop was a Massachusetts man like Kennedy; or, rather, the Rev. Winthrop was on his way to Massachusetts when he wrote his own "city on a hill" speech. The imagery is orginally from the bible, and Winthrop's speech was actually a sermon exhorting his followers to be a light to the rest of the world.

The most striking thing about Winthrop is that he had yet to make landfall when he wrote those words, underscoring Reagan's point that America was -- quite literally -- an idea before it was a country. At the heart of that idea is a notion that America implies opportunity for all its pilgrims, along with the chance for self-betterment.