I have attempted to watch some news of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina after reading some blogs from the USA about the appalling response of the administration/government over there and linking this to race and class – perspectives I am finding a significant amount of credence with. As would(should) be expected I found most of the clap‐trap put forth as narrow, punch‐line driven info‐tainment with a clear aim of keeping people entertained rather than actually informed. There is one other aspect that I often forget that tends to be a feature of such news service…

Many responses of ‘officials’ in the US to the impacts of Hurricane Katrina for me do little but perpetuate common perceptions of American‚Äôs as little more than self‐obsessed, arrogant, ignorant people who consider themselves as above all others in the world. Over the past days I have heard commentators, politicians and others refer to the devastation caused in ways that smack of this arrogance, illustrates the self‐created and perpetuated ignorance of US culture (yes I am making a sweeping generalisation here), and stinks of racism. Two comments stand out and really offend me…

The experiences outlined in my previous blog and a couple of other events have stimulated again my own thoughts on class awareness broadly. It is something I think we all should reflect on from time to time, and these events have somewhat pushed the issue into my mind again (I am also preparing to present my current research in front of many peers, including academics from Canada, and the material I am engaging with has led to some interesting and challenging self‐reflection). There is no doubt (at least at present) that I am going through a process of exodus from the …

On Thursday I had the last of my classes for the subject I am currently teaching that revolves around ethics and professionalism in engineering practice. The last class, a tutorial, turned out to be the best I had all session. The group presenting before the class looked at the controversies surrounding potential health impacts of mobile phones and power lines. What made it the best tutorial I had all session was the critical awareness and engagement with these controversial topics provided by those in this group. Seeing flickers on faces around the room as recognition of the oft-systematic ba…