AP Registration deadline March 16

Just a reminder that the AP registration deadline is Friday, March 16. Register to be eligible for $2000 or more in college tuition savings, by taking the two AP Government tests. 

Ugandans express confusion, anger at Kony 2012 video

Presidential (with a visit from UK PM) Bracketology

For once, an American president uses a British prime minister for a photo-op

President Obama in his role as Chief Citizen (NCAA bracket fan) Chief Diplomat (earlier in the day announced a joint law suit with the UK (EU) and Japan in the World Trade Organization against China), Chief of Party (Ohio a bellweather electoral state) and Chief of State (hosted UK prime minister David Cameron on Air Force One and NCAA Tourney Game #1) on Tuesday night.

The Economist's take from Over There:

WHEN it was first announced in the British press that President Barack Obama would be taking David Cameron on Air Force One to watch a basketball match in Ohio, the newspapers did not know whether to swoon with excitement that the prime minister would be the first foreign leader to be granted a ride on the "world's coolest plane", or to sneer that Mr Obama was using the perks of incumbency to woo a swing state. Even as we crossed the Atlantic earlier today, we in the press pack accompanying Mr Cameron to America were unsure just who was using who.

The default setting of any British journalist covering a trip to Washington is to assume that their prime minister is the supplicant when it comes to photo-opportunities and signs of favour. (The position is reversed when American presidents pay state visits and are hosted by the Queen. Then the British default assumption is that the president in question is jolly lucky to be treated to a stay at Windsor Castle, horse-rides with the monarch and so on).

Adding to the confusion, the prevailing image of Mr Obama in Britain has not much changed since his election. He is still seen as cool, elegant, cerebral and a little aloof (or as one British official puts it admiringly, "he still walks on water as far as Europeans are concerned"). So the idea of Mr Obama descending into the arena and grubbing for votes is a rather alien one.

By happy chance, I was in a bar not far from the White House this evening—surrounded by busy, besuited Washington types supping Yuenglings and scoffing sushi and burgers (though not together)—when my dining companion, an old friend, suddenly pointed to the giant television high in one corner. This was showing a halftime interview with Mr Obama and Mr Cameron, live from the floor of the University of Dayton arena. The sound was down, but subtitles for the deaf were scrolling across the screen, so your blogger was able to follow the interview from his bar stool.

The president, looking cool in his shirtsleeves, and oddly unruffled by holding his own giant microphone in his hand, was explaining to the interviewer why he had brought the prime minister of Great Britain to Ohio. Too often, when foreign leaders come to America they only see the coasts, replied Mr Obama. I wanted to bring Mr Cameron to the great state of Ohio, because the heartland is where it's at.

Now, I cannot pretend to understand college basketball, the March Madness championship or the "first four" system, all the more because I was following this via subtitles, but I am pretty sure that Mr Obama then named the University of Ohio as his favourite team to win. Oh my goodness, I thought to myself, that really is Barack Obama blatantly shilling for votes in a swing state. To a sheltered European, it felt a bit like discovering an archbishop selling insurance door-to-door.

Then came the prime minister. He was wearing his unvarying casual uniform of dark polo shirt and dark trousers, an outfit that always accentuates his few excess pounds and which makes him look the epitome of the slightly unfashionable Englishman on holiday (which I suspect is the point). Thanks to the very large television in my Washington bar, I can report that he seemed a little sweaty. He also seemed less at ease than Mr Obama with his giant microphone, complete with large cube advertising the television network on which he was appearing.

Both Mr Cameron and Mr Obama are a good height, as it happens, but both had the misfortune to look titchy next to their interviewer, Clark Kellogg, a former basketball star who is very tall indeed. Mr Cameron entered into the spirit of the thing, making no bones about the fact that he was shilling for Britain. Thrown a softball question about the London Olympics, he enthused that the stadiums (or stadia as he put it, betraying his fancy education) were all on time and on budget. The British capital was ready and eager for visitors, he said, you're all welcome.

I wish I could report that other patrons in the bar were transfixed by this heroic marketing effort, but I am not sure anyone else had even noticed the interview. Yet I was happy. I felt I had the answer to the question that had been nagging the press pack on the flight across the Atlantic. As far as tonight's jaunt on Air Force One to see Mississippi Valley State play Western Kentucky was concerned, the president and the prime minister were unquestionably using each other. A British leader being used for a photo-op by a sitting American president. I felt obscurely proud.
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Mr. Jeff Reed, who teaches APUSH in Virgina, has pubished his historical US Presidential Bracketology. We will use these as part of a March Madness extravaganza tomorrow in class.

Source of 2006 Rankings

Source of 2010 Rankings

President Obama Picks Tar Heels

Jeff Reed's Presidential Bracktology




 






US, EU and Japan challenge China on rare earths at WTO

(From BBC)
The US, Japan and the European Union have filed a case against China at the World Trade Organization, challenging its restrictions on rare earth exports.


US President Barack Obama accused China of breaking agreed trade rules as he announced the case at the White House.

Beijing has set quotas for exports of rare earths, which are critical to the manufacture of high-tech products from hybrid cars to flat-screen TVs.

It is the first WTO case to be filed jointly by the US, EU and Japan.

They argue that by limiting exports, China, which produces more than 95% of the world's rare earth metals, has pushed up prices.

Follow the link to President Obama's statement, as well as a short video on China's rare earth stockpile.

US claims rule-breaking

Lessons, Criticisms of Kony 2012

Today the New York Times Education Page posted "Activism or Slactivism? The Kony 2012 Campaign as a Teachable Moment."

Overview

What is the real story behind the “Kony 2012″ video and the “#StopKony” campaign? Do awareness campaigns promote real change or mere “slacktivism” or “clicktivism”? This lesson contains various ways to engage students in thinking deeply about the Kony2012 phenomenon and taking it further — including researching the situation in Uganda, reflecting on activism, examining criticisms of the “Kony 2012″ film or making videos about issues and causes that they care about.

Check it out and comment your opinion as students on this published educational lesson.

Kony 2012 as a Teachable Moment

Here is a link to a website that attempts to give another side of the story. By the way, great discussion in class bringing up many sides of this complicated story.

Open Letter to CEO of Invisable Children

The Daily Show: My Little Kony

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

The state of the Chinese State

From Ken Wedding's Teaching Comparative blog: China's premier offers an assessment of the economy and the future.

In China’s Annual Assessment, Wen Is Optimistic

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao opened the annual meeting of China’s handpicked legislature... with a markedly upbeat assessment of the state of the nation, saying that threats posed by bad local government debt and soaring real estate prices were under control, the economy was robust and that “the people’s well-being is improving.”…

The government will focus in its final year on raising ordinary people’s incomes and rebalancing the national economy to be driven less by investment and exports and more by consumer demand, he indicated.

Mr. Wen’s annual report is the most substantive event of every opening session of the National People’s Congress... a meeting whose agenda has long been predetermined by the leadership. In it, he said that the slowdown in China’s growth is coupled with the beginning of a structural transformation toward a consumer-based economy, a change long advocated by economic experts…

It [remains] to be seen whether the government would be able to deliver on its pledge to shift economic growth to consumer demand. Promises to rebalance the economy have been a staple of Mr. Wen’s earlier addresses but many of the structural changes crucial to that goal have been hamstrung by internal political resistance…

Document: Wen Jiabao’s Report to the National People’s Congress


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GOP Delegate Count

Here are the results from the Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses and here is the delegate count heading into the weekend contests where Mitt Romney won in Guam (yes, Guam) with 9 delegates and Rick Santorum won the Kansas Caucuses -- with 40 proportionally awarded delegates.