Homework 8

Two items, one is due on Wednesday before class (only 2 days!)

1) (Due this Wednesday before class) Post, on your blog, 250 words or more commenting on "Minority Report." This will get you thinking so we can have a more in-depth discussion. You can discuss any aspect of it you like - here are a few suggestions to get you started.

• Could this really happen?
• What could really happen?
• What if they found genes that make it more likely for someone to commit a crime - what should they do?
• What is the movie "really" about? For example, Orwell's book Animal Farm was really not about animals, but about communism, and Russia (then the Soviet Union) in particular. You can have a story about cats that's really about dogs, etc.
• What themes found in other movies and stories or in the popular imagination are present?
• What methods and tricks does the movie use to make the audience like it?
• Speaking of precrime - http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/06/security.screening/index.html. (And what about racial profiling? Any kind of "profiling"? Differential insurance rates? Is a definite future illness a "preexisting condition"? Measure testosterone levels, which predict criminality? Eugenics? Young men commit the most crimes - put'em all away? See http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119317165/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0.)

2) (Due next Monday) Request a slot for presenting your project. Any class between now and the end of the semester is alright, up to two people on a given day. The course index/topic list shows the available class days. Do this by email to berleant@gmail.com.