the undecided

i am the design editor of The Undecided, a vaguely political student publication at Pomona. today i received the prompts for the february issue from the editor in chief. i present them here, because frankly, we can always use more good articles. i suppose this is mostly intended for Claremont students, but we'd probably accept a good article from anyone, if one interests you. no pay, just resumé props.
-edward
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Here are the prompts from the upcoming issue of The Undecided. If you're interested in writing on one of these topics, please contact the editor responsible. As always, feel free to forward this email on to anyone else you think might be interested in writing for the issue. Each article should be somewhere between 600 and 900 words long:

Prompt 1:
Editor: Gregory Carter (Gregory.Carter@pomona.edu)

The American economy is, in the view of many economists, heading towards a recession. This has already had an impact on the 2008 American presidential election, with candidates on both sides of the aisle pushing various economic stimulus packages. The candidacies of Mike Huckabee and John Edwards seem to indicate that a sort of economic populism, relying in large part on helping the middle and lower class and putting up protections to staunch the flow of jobs overseas, may be taking hold in America. Even Hillary Clinton, whose husband enacted the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and led the charge for globalization, has questioned some provisions of that agreement. This change in the national economic dialog raises several questions. Is globalization flawed, or is this just an expected bump in the road as the economy is forced to shift its focus? Are these candidates for president merely pandering to anti-freetrade interest groups, or is this shift away from free trade the beginning of a new era of American isolationism? Finally, should America embrace this populism or continue to subscribe broadly to a free

trade agenda?

Prompt 2:
Editor: Brittney Andres (Brittney.Andres@pomona.edu)

The recent violence in Kenya over the result of a disputed democratic election has unfortunately come to mirror the violence endemic in many other African nations. Almost more disturbing than the violence itself is that it occurred in a country that the international community generally believed to be a model African democracy. Do the examples of Kenya and other arguably failed elected governments such as Nigeria prove that certain intrinsic features of African countries cause them to be inherently incompatible with democracy? If not, what steps need to be taken to encourage the development of sustainable democracies in Africa?

Prompt 3:
Editor: David McCormick (David.McCormick@pomona.edu)

American forces in Iraq have battled against an urban insurgency since the occupation. Last January, President Bush called for a dramatic increase in the number of U.S. troops serving in Iraq and the augmented force began conducting military operations in June. Since this "troop surge," suicide bombings, partisan violence, and US casualties have dropped dramatically. Is the troop surge the cause or are other underlying factors at work? Has the increased troop size had a beneficial and lasting effect on Iraq that will continue after the surge or will the recent gains disappear as soon as the surge troops are recalled? Does the success of the troop surge suggest an end to the war in the near future, or will the U.S. continue to have a presence in Iraq for years to come?

Prompt 4:
Editor: James Dee (James.Dee@pomona.edu)

As a result of the release of the Nintendo Wii and the Sony Playstation 3, video game sales were at an all-time high in 2007. 2008 promises the release of many long-awaited titles for these platforms, such as the controversial Grand Theft Auto IV. Taking advantage of new technologies pioneered in console gaming as well as in the PC platform, such games will undoubtedly be more graphic than ever. These new technological developments revitalize the decade-old debate concerning violence and sex in video and computer games. Now that ultra-realistic violent games are even more widely accessible to young children than they were ten years ago, should the government take a more active hand in restricting the games' availability and content? Perhaps more importantly, is it time to acknowledge that the prevalence of violent and sexual content in video games causes psychological harm? Or, is this belief misguided?

If you need some examples of previous Undecided articles, check out the website at pcundecided.com. If you have any general questions about the magazine, please contact me at Tgs02004@pomona.edu

best,

Tom