“Our News Philosophy - The State Journal” plus 3 more

Our News Philosophy - The State Journal
Mr. Michael Miller - Acton Institute
NASCAR Will Now Face Balancing Act With New 'Back to Basics' Racing - Bleacherreport.com
Philosophy: Brief Summary of Hilary Putnam's Brains and Behavior - Associated Content

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Posted: 24 Jan 2010 09:59 AM PST

Home > Our News Philosophy

Our News Philosophy

The State Journal's vision is to be the No. 1 news resource for our readers. Our mission is to report about our state and surrounding communities fairly, accurately and completely with the best informed and most professional news staff.

As professional journalists, we will:

Assure fair and balanced coverage of all perspectives.
Focus on meaningful stories that have an impact on our viewers' lives.
Seek background information and conduct research to present the most accurate and in-depth stories possible.
While examining the specific, offer a broader context.
Treat interviewees with respect.
Ask the tough, but fair question.
Report on what's good about our community, as well as expose wrongs.
Expect to be held accountable for producing fair and accurate reports.

In fulfilling our public trust to observe and report the news, The State Journal hopes to improve the quality of life for all those people who call this area home.

Mr. Michael Miller - Acton Institute

Posted: 24 Jan 2010 10:21 AM PST

February 18, 2010
12:00 - 1:30 PM

Downtown Grand Rapids
Waters Building - David Cassard Sr. Conference Room 161 Ottawa Ave. NW, Grand Rapids, MI 49503

Michael Miller is the Director of Programs at the Acton Institute and also oversees Acton's international work. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Notre Dame, has an MA from Nagoya University's Graduate School of International Development (Japan), an MA in philosophy from Franciscan University, and an MBA in International Management from Thunderbird (The American Graduate School of International Management). Before coming to Acton, he spent three years at Ave Maria College of the Americas in Nicaragua where he taught philosophy and political science and was the chair of the philosophy and theology department. He has almost 10 years of international experience and has lived and traveled in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. He has been published in the Washington Times, The Detroit News, The LA Daily News, and Crisis. His research interests include political economy, moral philosophy, economic development, and political theory

NASCAR Will Now Face Balancing Act With New 'Back to Basics' Racing - Bleacherreport.com

Posted: 24 Jan 2010 12:51 PM PST

During this past week's media tour, NASCAR took a big, bold step in what Chairman and CEO Brian France termed "back to basics" racing. NASCAR intends to let the drivers drive, putting the racing back into their hands for the 2010 season.

"Over the past 10 years, we've dramatically increased safety and that mission continues," France said. "However, it's time for us to allow the drivers to drive."

"We don't want the rules and regulations to get in the way of great racing and fantastic finishes," France continued. "NASCAR is a contact sport - our history is based on banging fenders."

While this is music to the ears of many fans, including the NASCAR Fan Council that has been advising the sport's leadership, NASCAR will also now face a most difficult balancing act.

First, NASCAR will have to balance this "no holds barred" racing approach with their commitment to safety. Let's face it, many of the rules and regulations that have come about in the sport have been developed to ensure that the drivers stay safe and that no one is using their car as a weapon.

This new balancing act is most dramatically illustrated by the change in bump-drafting rules in Daytona and Talladega, which NASCAR has in effect eliminated. The sanctioning body also announced the use of bigger restrictor plates at Daytona, which will give the drivers even more horse power as they ride closely together in the draft.

NASCAR instituted these very rules to address many of the frightening crashes that have occurred at both of those super-speedways, including Ryan Newman's dangerous tumble and upside down landing, as well as Carl Edwards' flight into the catch fence, injuring several fans.

At that time, drivers had begged for relief and Carl Edwards intimated that "someone would be killed" as a result of the high speeds and bump drafting that occurs at those very tracks.

With the elimination of the bump-drafting rules and the putting of the responsibility squarely back in the drivers' hands, NASCAR will have a most delicate balance to maintain between racing and safety. And the first test of that balancing act will be the sport's very first and most visible race, the Daytona 500.

The second major balancing act with the new "let 'em race" philosophy will be how it is balanced against the wishes of the sponsors. NASCAR is totally driven by sponsorship dollars, whose name is on the car reigns supreme.

So, how will Fed Ex and Verizon, even without logos, feel when Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski continue their feud from 2009 into the new season with "no holds barred"?

How will NASCAR balance out the need to maintain the incredible sponsorship dollars, and the "good image" that goes with it for the drivers with this new contact sport philosophy?

NASCAR will also have to face the delicate balancing act of this new racing philosophy with how it plays on television and with the media. For many years, NASCAR has battled the "rough and tumble" image of "rednecks duking it out" on and off the track.

So, how will NASCAR balance the need for a polished image, especially as it relates again back to the corporate sponsorship dollars, with the new "let it all hang out" type of racing? How will the sanctioning body balance letting the drivers show their personalities while still ensuring the sport does not turn into WWE?

Finally, in this new season, NASCAR will have to ensure the balance of their new racing style with the cultures of the teams themselves. Many of the major team powerhouses, including the Hendricks and the Gibbs and the Penskes of the sport, have fairly strict codes of conduct for their drivers as part of their team culture.

If NASCAR is encouraging drivers to bring back the contact in the sport, how will this balance with the teams' expectations of professionalism in their drivers on and off the track? And of course that expectation is directly tied back to the corporate sponsorship dollars that all teams have worked so hard to cultivate and secure.

Whether you agree with the rule changes or not, and it seems that most fans do, NASCAR will indeed be on the balance beam for the 2010 season. And we will all have to see how well their balance of these many competing factors and interests is maintained.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Philosophy: Brief Summary of Hilary Putnam's Brains and Behavior - Associated Content

Posted: 23 Jan 2010 11:15 PM PST

Overview of the Main Argument - Plus a Minor Critique

In his paper Brains and Behavior, Hilary Putnam rails against logical behaviorism, one popular response to the problem presented by Cartesian dualism. Logical behaviorism posits that there are analytic entailments between mind-statements and behavior-statements and that the only real reason there seems to be a separation between the mind and the body is that statements about the mind are more ambiguous than statements about behavior. While Putnam clearly opposes Cartesian dualism, he also feels that logical behaviorism is a misstep that does not solve Descartes's problem. One of the arguments he uses to attack logical positivism is a hypothetical x-world. However, because the x-world is purely conjectural, it falls short of effectively refuting logical behaviorism.

In Putnam's hypothetical x-world, people feel pain but do not express it in their behavior. They behave in the same way as someone who is not in pain. Under logical behaviorist prescriptions, one would have to conclude that these people are not in pain. Putnam, however, provides a counter to this. He presents the possibility of at some point being able to measure waves of pain produced by the brain through "v-waves" and thus being able to prove that the members of this hypothetical x-world are in fact in pain. In this situation, the connection between thoughts and behavior is clearly undermined.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Philosophy

Sunday, January 24, 2010