I don't necessarily know if there was a trend. I more think that there are certain decades where there are more good and some that are mostly bad. Something I found really interesting was that the 1930s had so many good things, usually we think of that as a really negative time, with the Great Depression going on but the timeline gives a lot of positive things. Some years also just don't have as many things going on. Such as in the 90s it seems that there are a lot of negative things happening because there is only one thumbs up but there are a couple things with no thumbs and not as many events as in earlier years. Certain decades such as the 30s and 40s just have way more events happening so even though they have a lot of good things they still have bad things as well. Although the 2000s are a little bleak I will admit. This article was in written in 2007 though. It's been nearly 5 years since this and I would say that many positive things have occured since the article was written. We will have to wait and see how the timeline continues and if we can get some more positive events in our time.

Both of these questions have a sort of middle ground to them. In the case of Jay Z and his tactics, sitting back is good in a lot of situations but not all. That is not always the best solution but it's important to remember that it can be a solution. Sometimes we see a problem and just keep throwing things at it. Maybe if we spend more money, do more research, send more troops, etc that will fix the problem. But sometimes the problem can be caused or made worse by too much action. Sometimes sitting back is the right idea. People have already given examples like the economy and war and terrorism. It's a situation by situation thing, there is no one way to fix problems.
In the case of the incentives, he did say that incentives could be used for cases but that was a limited number, mechanical only tasks, for everything else we should steer away from the "carrot and the stick." The best solution is one that was discovered by looking at all angles, not just sticking to one way of thinking.

Well in the situation of the predator it is important to think it's a predator. In public policy I suppose this corresponds to a possible threat. A possible terrorist attack or something like this. Not that I agree with the way we dealt with Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11 and starting a war over there but by thinking of it compared to the "rustle in the grass" it can sort of be reasoned. We talked in class about how people can be kind of cynical of things such as 9/11 but this article points it out more as we are more accepting of conspiracy theories, I found that interesting. I think I went in a different direction from when I started but I think people view policy in different ways. Some people are more inclined to accept the stories given by the government and others are more inclined to believe things like conspiracies.

I went back took look over the chart he gives and I think I agree with most of it. I definitely think that Economic growth is definitely a means and not a goal. The others I find are a little bit more up in the air. I feel that education is both a very important means and a very important goal. Education drives other forms of development like economic growth but also governace and culture, culture is taught by the community and the family, it is education. How to take care of the environment and why the environment is important is taught and learned. Education is just always an important part of life. So I disagree with him there. I don't know if I agree or disagree with him on Human Rights, I definitely think that it is an important end goal, along with culture but is it necessary as a means? I don't think so, look at the United States, white males ruled everything and we developed pretty okay and now we have a lot more human rights because we've "developed" and so we are achieving these other goals. Governance is my final one that I disagree on, I think it is more necessary as a means and isn't really a goal. I feel government is the development, it helps the underdogs, it balances people and keeps laws and peace but in the end if people are educated and the economy is good there shouldn't be as much of a need for government.

I think that "saving Africa" and portraying it as a helpless region are not the best ways of going about it, but I do believe that helping the parts of Africa that need it is good. So even though I don't necessarily agree with the amount of attention given to celebrities and the like who are helping in different ways I do think that it at least brings some awareness to people in America and it does inspire some people to help as well and I think that is a good cause. There are definitely parts of Africa that need assistance and there are others that maybe don't as much but the places that do need help, any help is good whether it comes from a discrete source or from a well know celebrity I don't see a problem. I mean we can get caught up in whether they are doing it to help or just get attention but if they are helping, isn't that all that matters? As long as the job gets done it shouldn't matter who gets credit. I'm not saying that it's good that we portray Africa as helpless or that we make celebrities into heroes, that is definitely a flaw in our society but I don't think that means that everything that we do is bad.