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Federalist 68

The mode of electing a president  With this being an election year, you have a greater chance of being asked about the election process and the Electoral College. As we hear more and more about some of the 538 electors possibly breaking with tradition and not voting for Donald Trump, this may be a good read for you before December 19th.

Enjoy,
Mr. Thompson

Landmark Supreme Court Cases aka maybe the most valuable test prep you can do!

Below are the 42 Supreme Court Cases that you are responsible for. Some time in January we will have a 20 question quiz on Landmark Supreme Court Cases. These are the cases you are likely to see referenced on the AP Gov't test in May. In a group of 5 students, you will be responsible for posting content on 4 of these cases. When you post for each case here is what you need in very short notes:

     1) Name of court case

     2) Brief description of what happened

     3) What part of the Constitution does it deal with (be specific) 

                 Good - Amendment 1 Freedom of Religion Establishment clause

                 Bad - 6th Amendment

     4) Most importantly What did the court rule!

Do a good timely job as your classmates are depending on you! (and I will be reading them too and sharing with the class whether they are reliable sources of info. Should be done by the time we return from winter break.

Mr. Thompson

APLG   Landmark Supreme Court Cases

1. Baker vs. Carr-1962

        - apportionment

2. Brown vs. Board of Education- 1954                        

                - school segregation

                                                                                               

3. California vs. Acevedo-1991

                - searches of automobiles

4. California vs. Greenwood-1988

                - searches of garbage

5. Citizen’s United vs. FEC-2010

                -campaign finance

6. Cox vs. New Hampshire-1941

                -public demonstration

7. Cruzan vs. Director, Missouri Dep’t of Health-1990

                -right to die

8. Dred Scott vs. Sanford – 1857

                - rights of slaves

9. Edwards vs. Aguillard-1987

                -public school instruction

10. Engel vs. Vitale-1962

                -school prayer

11. Escobedo vs. Illinois-1964

                -right to legal counsel

12. Feiner vs. New York-1951

-free speech

13. Furman vs. Georgia-1972

                -capital punishment

14. Gibbons vs. Ogden-1824

                -authority of Congress

15. Gideon vs. Wainwright-1963

                -right to legal counsel

16. Gitlow vs. New York-1925

                -free speech

17. Grayned vs. City of Rockford-1972

                -right to assemble/protest

18. Gregg vs. Georgia-1976

                -capital punishment

19. Hazelwood School District vs. Kuhlmeier-1988

                -censorship of school newspapers

20. Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. vs. United States- 1964

                -discrimination

21. Jaffee vs. Redmond-1996

                -doctor/patient confidentiality

22. Katz vs. United States-1967

                -search and seizure

23. Marbury vs. Madison-1803

                -judicial review

24. McCulloch vs. Maryland-1819

                -powers of Congress

25. Miranda vs. Arizona-1966

                -rights if arrested

26. New Jersey vs. TLO-1985

                -searches in school

27. New York Times Co. vs. U.S.-1971

                -freedom of the press

28. Plessy vs. Ferguson-1896

                -separate but equal

29. Powell vs. Alabama-1932

                -right to legal counsel

30. Regents of the University of California vs. Bakke-1978

                -affirmative action

31. Reno vs. American Civil Liberties Union-1997

                -online pornography

32. Reynolds vs. Sims-1964

                - representation in state legislatures

33. Rhodes vs. Chapman- 1981

                -cruel and unusual punishment

34. Roe vs. Wade-1973

                -abortion

35. Schenck vs. United States-1919

                -free speech

36. Tinker vs. Des Moines School District-1969

                -free speech in schools

37. United States vs. Eichman-1990

                -flag-burning

38. United States vs. Nixon-1974

                -powers of the president

39. Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services-1989

                -abortion

40. West Virginia State Board of Education vs, Barnette-1943

                -rights in school/pledge of allegiance

41. Whren vs. United States-1996

                -searches of automobiles

42. Woodson vs. North Carolina-1976

                -capital punishment

Book Club

APLG Book Club titles 2016.  The newer the book, the more difficult to find (and easier to purchase).

List also at apeg.blogspot.com

Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead (2013) by Sheryl Sanderg, 229pp. Her point, in a nutshell, is that notwithstanding the many gender biases that still operate all over the workplace, excuses and justifications won’t get women anywhere. Instead, believe in yourself, give it your all, “lean in” and “don’t leave before you leave” — which is to say, don’t doubt your ability to combine work and family and thus edge yourself out of plum assignments before you even have a baby. Leaning in can promote a virtuous circle: you assume you can juggle work and family, you step forward, you succeed professionally, and then you’re in a better position to ask for what you need and to make changes that could benefit others.

BEING MORTAL (2014) by Atul Gawande, 282pp. The surgeon and New Yorker writer considers how doctors fail patients at the end of life, and how they can do better.  The surgeon in the story is the father of Atul Gawande, who is also a surgeon as well as a writer for The New Yorker. His new book, “Being Mortal,” is a personal meditation on how we can better live with age-related frailty, serious illness and approaching death.  It is also a call for a change in the philosophy of health care. Gawande writes that members of the medical profession, himself included, have been wrong about what their job is. Rather than ensuring health and survival, it is “to enable well-being.”

BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME (2015), by Ta-Nehisi Coates, 176pp.  In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden.

NOTORIOUS RBG (2015), by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, pp240.  Notorious RBG, inspired by the Tumblr that amused the Supreme Court Justice herself and brought to you by its founder and an award-winning feminist journalist, is more than just a love letter. It draws on intimate access to Ginsburg's family members, close friends, colleagues, and clerks, as well an interview with the Justice herself. An original hybrid of reported narrative, annotated dissents, rare archival photos and documents, and illustrations, the book tells a never-before-told story of an unusual and transformative woman who transcends generational divides. As the country struggles with the unfinished business of gender equality and civil rights, Ginsburg stands as a testament to how far we can come with a little chutzpah.

EXTREME OWNERSHIP: Applying the principles of Navy SEALs leadership training to any organization (2015) by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, 317pp.   In Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin share hard-hitting, Navy SEAL combat stories that translate into lessons for business and life. With riveting first-hand accounts of making high-pressure decisions as Navy SEAL battlefield leaders, this book is equally gripping for leaders who seek to dominate other arenas. Jocko and Leif served together in SEAL Task Unit Bruiser, the most highly decorated Special Operations unit from the war in Iraq. Their efforts contributed to the historic triumph for U.S. forces in Ramadi. Through those difficult months of sustained combat, Jocko, Leif and their SEAL brothers learned that leadership--at every level--is the most important thing on the battlefield. They started Echelon Front to teach these same leadership principles to companies across industries throughout the business world that want to build their own high-performance, winning teams.

 

Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World (2015) by Bruce Schneier. 400pp.  You are under surveillance right now. Your cell phone provider tracks your location and knows who’s with you. Your online and in-store purchasing patterns are recorded, and reveal if you're unemployed, sick, or pregnant. Your e-mails and texts expose your intimate and casual friends. Google knows what you’re thinking because it saves your private searches. Facebook can determine your sexual orientation without you ever mentioning it.  We cooperate with corporate surveillance because it promises us convenience, and we submit to government surveillance because it promises us protection. The result is a mass surveillance society of our own making. But have we given up more than we’ve gained? In Data and Goliath, security expert Bruce Schneier offers another path, one that values both security and privacy. He shows us exactly what we can do to reform our government surveillance programs and shake up surveillance-based business models, while also providing tips for you to protect your privacy every day. You'll never look at your phone, your computer, your credit cards, or even your car in the same way again.

 

Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen (2015) by Mary Norris, 240pp.  Between You & Me features Norris's laugh-out-loud descriptions of some of the most common and vexing problems in spelling, punctuation, and usage―comma faults, danglers, "who" vs. "whom," "that" vs. "which," compound words, gender-neutral language―and her clear explanations of how to handle them. Down-to-earth and always open-minded, she draws on examples from Charles Dickens, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, and the Lord's Prayer, as well as from The Honeymooners, The Simpsons, David Foster Wallace, and Gillian Flynn. She takes us to see a copy of Noah Webster's groundbreaking Blue-Back Speller, on a quest to find out who put the hyphen in Moby-Dick, on a pilgrimage to the world's only pencil-sharpener museum, and inside the hallowed halls of The New Yorker and her work with such celebrated writers as Pauline Kael, Philip Roth, and George Saunders.

 

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2015) by Yuval Noah Harari, 464pp.  One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one—homo sapiens. What happened to the others? And what may happen to us? Most books about the history of humanity pursue either a historical or a biological approach, but Dr. Yuval Noah Harari breaks the mold with this highly original book that begins about 70,000 years ago with the appearance of modern cognition. From examining the role evolving humans have played in the global ecosystem to charting the rise of empires, Sapiens integrates history and science to reconsider accepted narratives, connect past developments with contemporary concerns, and examine specific events within the context of larger ideas.

Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations (11/22/2016) by Thomas Friedman, 496 pp.   A field guide to the twenty-first century, written by one of its most celebrated observers.  We all sense it—something big is going on. You feel it in your workplace. You feel it when you talk to your kids. You can’t miss it when you read the newspapers or watch the news. Our lives are being transformed in so many realms all at once—and it is dizzying.  In Thank You for Being Late, a work unlike anything he has attempted before, Thomas L. Friedman exposes the tectonic movements that are reshaping the world today and explains how to get the most out of them and cushion their worst impacts. You will never look at the world the same way again after you read this book: how you understand the news, the work you do, the education your kids need, the investments your employer has to make, and the moral and geopolitical choices our country has to navigate will all be refashioned by Friedman’s original analysis.

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis 272 (June 2016) by J. D. Vance, 272 pp.  From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, a probing look at the struggles of America’s white working class through the author’s own story of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town.  Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of poor, white Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for over forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. In HillbillyElegy, J.D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hanging around your neck.

 

 

The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World (09/20/2016) by Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, 368 pp. Nobel Peace Prize Laureates His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have survived more than fifty years of exile and the soul-crushing violence of oppression. Despite their hardships—or, as they would say, because of them—they are two of the most joyful people on the planet.  In April 2015, Archbishop Tutu traveled to the Dalai Lama’s home in Dharamsala, India, to celebrate His Holiness’s eightieth birthday and to create what they hoped would be a gift for others. They looked back on their long lives to answer a single burning question: How do we find joy in the fact of life’s inevitable suffering?  They traded intimate stories, teased each other continually, and shared their spiritual practices. By the end of a week filled with laughter and punctuated with tears, these two global heroes had stared into the abyss and despair of our time and revealed how to live a life brimming with joy.

 

Consider the Lobster (2007) by David Foster Wallace, 343 pp. Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a funny bone? What is John Updike's deal, anyway? And what happens when adult video starlets meet their fans in person? David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in essays that are also enthralling narrative adventures. Whether covering the three-ring circus of a vicious presidential race, plunging into the wars between dictionary writers, or confronting the World's Largest Lobster Cooker at the annual Maine Lobster Festival, Wallace projects a quality of thought that is uniquely his and a voice as powerful and distinct as any in American letters.