Assignment:
Discussion 1
"The 8th Amendment Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause and Proportionality" Please respond to the following:
Read and analyze the article "Furman's Resurrection: Proportionality Review and the Supreme Court's Second Chance to Fulfill Furman's Promise". Support or criticize the author's position that the use of a meaningful proportionality review of a death penalty case can reduce the risk of an arbitrary death sentence. Justify your position and respond to no less than one of your peers.
World Cultures
Discussion 2: Opera and Society
Please respond to each of the following questions, using sources under the Explore heading and the textbook as the basis of your response:
1. Using the text as a source and/or the web links listed below, choose an opera by Verdi, or Wagner, or Puccini, give a brief description of the plot and characters. What changes would you make to the plot or characters or storyline to update this opera make it more interesting?
Opera and Society
• Wagner and Verdi; (pp. 1133-1134), Puccini; review the "Music Folder"
• Huizenga article and audio selections at
• Wagner video of a stage production (Tristan und Isolde)
• Verdi video clip of stage production (Rigoletto)
• Puccini video clip of stage production (Tosca)
• An overall website about operas:
2. Person of the week: Your choices are between Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, American writers and poets, and Claude Monet, and Edward Manet, artists who broke new ground in France with their painting techniques. Look at the pictures and information in our text and online and then tell us which person you feel is more important and why.
o Here are some links about Whitman and Dickinson and Monet and Manet.