The Great American Think-Off

Just after defeating the Empire by founding the Rebel Alliance on the X-box 360 (The Force Unleashed just plain ROCKS BTW) and enjoying each and every last carb in my Wawa Turkey Bowl I decided to tickle the ivories and do a little web surfing (Hey, 2009’s been a good year so far). It was on Yahoo that I found this: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090102/ap_on_fe_st/odd_think_off_1; The Great American Think-Off. I clicked it and read the following article; “NEW YORK MILLS, Minn. – A tricky question of morality is this year's brainteaser in the annual philosophy competition called the Great American Think-Off.
"Is it ever wrong to do the right thing?" is the theme of the 2009 Think-Off.
The event is organized by Minnesota's New York Mills Regional Cultural Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding the cultural and creative opportunities of rural Americans.
Anyone can enter by submitting an essay of 750 words or less. Four finalists will be chosen to debate the question on June 13 before a live audience.
Last year's question was whether immigration strengthens or threatens the United States. The audience decided Craig Allen, of West Linn, Ore., was most convincing with his argument that the system of immigration and immigration policy is broken, that it encourages illegal immigration and poses a threat to the country.
New York Mills is a farming town of some 1,200 people in central Minnesota, about 170 miles northwest of Minneapolis.”

From there I went to the http://www.think-off.org/, the official site for the event. Interesting stuff is to be found here at the New York Mills Regional Cultural Center’s website including the some of the winning essays and questions from years past. Up in the top left corner is the easy on-line registration procedure. It’s just a click away.

So there we have it, 2009’s first crazy activity; a short philosophy essay on “Is it ever wrong to do the right thing?” It sounds like an interesting exercise but one that I don’t want to do alone so I’m taking YOU, Gentle Reader, with me.

What do you say – are you in?

I think I’ll throw my hat in the ring. I am not going to answer the question here… yet. I will after I ponder upon it, write it, and upload it; hey, I might even post it here at Chicken Scratch when it is finally fit for human consumption. But that’s just still a gleam in my eye.

I’m glad I tripped over this. It gives me something to do between defeating the Empire and concurring HALO.

Life is good.