End of the Year Reflection

          Al-righty then.

          This is the second to last blog post until school starts back up in January, and I am going to write about the best pieces of work I have done so far this semester that I am very proud of.

          First was the video project that I did on the state of our ocean waters and how our

 littering effects it.  As of the moment the video is not hosted anywhere, but I am working on getting it hosted to youtube (it's currently uploading).  I feel like I really connected to this project because I am a person that cares about the oceans, and the amount of untapped power and unseen beauty that lies within it, and I am definitely not one to stop and let the people that say they are the same as me ruin it.  I put a lot of work into it, and as there are some timing issues that I would love to fix, it is too late now.  I am also proud of how some of my shots were taken.  This shot here I feel is a great artistic shot because of the wide angle and how much it covers and shows.  It shows a cigarette butt sitting in a gutter in the bottom right corner, yet a great blue cloudy sky in the top left.  I feel like it really shows how one little thing can ruin a

 great big thing, just by being in the wrong place, which was really the whole point of the project that I was working on and I feel that this specific shot shows that.

          I got to this point through tons of hard work and time.  I think I stayed in at least days from 7:30 till at least 7:30.  I also worked hard outside of the classroom, in order to get interviews outside of the school, or footage outside of school.  I feel like good projects really require more than a slight motivation and some internet research.  It requires a huge drive and a lot of research, not only through the internet, but through people, places, and things.  For instance for this project I went to a beach cleanup hosted by Surfrider SD and Coastkeeper, and I found some interesting information, such as the amount of trash picked up there, and also the types of trash that was found there.

Neptune's Navy!

          An interesting vigilante environmentalist group known as the Sea Shepherds has recently become very publicized in the United States, thanks to support from Animal Planet, and I am going to post a blog on my personal opinions about what they do.

          The Captain and Owner of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is named Paul Watson.  He looks like a stereotypical lumber jack, only a foot shorter and with white hair.  Ever since he was a child he was completely against any sort of cruel behavior towards any animal.  He even claims that, when he was 9 years old, he shot a kid with a B.B. gun for harassing birds, and destroyed animal traps after his "pet beaver" got stuck in one.  Now as I am unsure about the truth to these stories, this man has dedicated himself to the preservation of marine wildlife around the world.

          Now, the people that he is trying to expose to the world are the japanese.  The japanese are currently the biggest threat to whales in the wild, killing more than a thousand in december of 2005.  The japanese excuse for this currently illegal activity is that it is for research, commonly showing signs in english stating "Collecting tissue samples" and painting the word Research on the side of every whaling vessel they have in their fleet.  The problem here is, the company that they are doing research for, the Institute for Cetacean Research, has never published a thing, which most people think is due to the fact that their whales get cut up and shipped to restaurants before any research can be done to them.

          Companies such as Greenpeace, which Paul Watson helped give an influential start to, are not in support of the techniques used, and claimed to have been used, by the Sea Shepherds, commonly denying any relation to the eco-vigilante group.  The techniques used by the Sea Shepherds include ramming, smoke bombs, boarding vessels or various reasons, and media attention.  One of their most commonly used tools is the media, and they know how to use it.  They are a big story in australian now, because of the fact that the japanese are whaling in an australian protected habitat.  Where the methods of the Sea Shepherds may be wrong, violent, and sometimes a risk to whalers lives, there are still a lot of supporters in their campaign against whaling, such as Pierce Brosnan, Orlando Bloom and Mic Jagger.

          Personally, I feel as if the Sea Shepherds are correct, because I like the idea of protecting endangered animals such as the fin whales, a prominent capture of the japanese, whether the whalers get hurt or not.  I believe this because they need to be taught a lesson, and if extremes are necessary, it will show the japanese governments just how much people care, and they might stop, or even slow down their whaling expeditions. 

Racial Identity Theft On The Rise!

          Ok, so it isn't really theft, but it is a problem that has been going on unnoticed for a long time.   The issue here is racial assumption, the act of thinking someone is from a certain ethnic group just by their look. An example of this is when people look at Oprah, they think that she is black. It may seem that way, but really, she is a mix of African, Native American, and East Asian. This whole assumption thing poses a big problem in my mind, and it is triggered by a few various things.
          The first thing that I would like to bring up would be the large yet somewhat realistic stereotype of the so called "Black" people and their crime rates. According to the official government Bureau of Justice website on the statistics of homicide trends by race, between the year 1976 and 2005, 52% of all homicides in the United States were committed by one who was recognized as an African American.  But, if you go to the site, there is no listings for hispanics, and the only other statistic is listed "other", and the rates for other are extremely low compared to White and Black, never exceeding 5%.  First off, this does not give a good name to the word "Black" at all, almost giving an excuse for racial stereotypes.  Second,  it is almost shameful for the great American government themselves to give out statistics such as this because of the fact that they do not include any sort of information regarding mixed race people, and, the statistics seem a little off because they do not include hispanics.  The fact that it does not include hispanics, and if hispanics were included in the group labeled "other", then they would have committed less than 5% of every homicide in America since 1976.  Does that make much sense to you?

          The next point I would like to make is what we have done with the professional people that have made it far in America.  Obama, the next president, is, believe it or not, is not "Black".  Obama is not the first black president, but he is the first multiracial president.  The news has given off a nice sort of story that is almost convincing everyone in america that we have the first black president, and the black people have come such a long ways in America.  Do you really think so?  Obama's mother was white.

          The big question now is, does putting the name "Black", with all of its negative connotations, on to some one of the multiracial status of Tiger Woods, or Barack Obama, bring the negative connotation of the term further toward the positive side? Or does it make the person the connotation is being applied to look worse?  The big picture here is, we really have not put much thought into how we as a people refer to others, and that in turn has led to a lot of assumptions, some of which can possibly be very dangerous.

Literary Devices in the Last of the Mohicans

This book was an interesting one. The book’s theme was one of racial divides, and how the Native Americans dealt with, and were dealt with the struggles during the third year of the French American war. The theme was brought about by various literary devices, and especially ones that are often forgotten. Some literary devices used to bring about the theme in this book were imagery, dialogue, and tone.

The first literary device this book offers up is imagery. Imagery can be shown in many ways. The book starts describing the setting, “The alarmed colonists believed that the yells of the savages mingled with every fitful gust of wind that issued from the interminable forests of the west.” The imagery within this sentence really sets up the setting as a place you would not want to be in. An unending forest filled with savage natives that would kill you on sight, showing the theme of the story right there in the beginning pages of the book. Another time this was used was further in the book, where it says “They complied without hesitation, though many a fearful and anxious glance was thrown behind them toward the thickening gloom which now lay like a dark barrier along the margin of the stream.” This bit of imagery is really good because it makes you see a void of darkness, instilling fear into your very heart and soul, and all because of the ever looming presence of the various native tribes. A Third example of this would be when it described “… around him, there was a sullen fierceness mingled with the quiet of the savage that was likely to arrest the attention of much more experienced eyes than those which now scanned him in unconcealed amazement.” This is describing how the English saw the Mohican Indian Runner as, as person with a sullen fierceness, and the quiet of the savage. It shows you how the natives were seen through the eyes of the white folk, which in turn draws out the theme.

The second literary device that I will be showing is dialogue. It is an often overlooked device that is sometimes even overused to nowhere near its full potential. One example of dialogue in this book is “even their own kind seem no more than the beasts of the wood.” This is a genuine quote showing the true nature of the divide between the natives and the settlers. “Beasts of the wood” is simply put a huge insult, further developing the theme. Another good use of description is “Let us remember we are men without a cross, and let us teach these natives of the forest that white blood can run as freely as red…” This quote here is of a white man talking about the natives, and how they can so easily slip in an out of the woods, and be stealthy and quick. But this also shows the white man being more aggressive. The man is explaining how his group can possibly outrun the natives, showing a competition between the two groups of people. “Well may you laugh, ye children of the devil.” Is a very simple quote, which pushes the theme of the story almost down the reader’s throat. It is so strong, that it is hard to not see the theme projected in it.

Tone is a very important literary device in any novel. It sets the mood at which you tell the story. It can be expressed through other literary devices as well. This quote, “The alarmed colonists believed that the yells of the savages mingled with every fitful gust of wind that issued from the interminable forests of the west,” mentioned earlier in the imagery section, is a perfect way to show two literary devices in one. The imagery sets the tone of darkness and fear, which is what the colonists held against the natives at that time. Another way tone can be set is through dialogue. This already stated quote, “even their own kind seem no more than the beasts of the wood,” is a good way to show this because it sets a mood of anger and distaste, hinting at the whole message of the racial divide between the French and the natives. One last quote from the book shows how a description can set the tone of the book, which was “The colors of the war paint had blended in dark confusion about his fierce countenance, and rendered his swarthy lineaments still more savage and repulsive than if art had attempted an effect.” This quote is showing how just by the war paint, it sets a tone of repulsiveness toward the native, making him ever more uncivilized than the common white colonist of the era.

In conclusion, imagery, dialogue, and tone are common, yet overlooked literary devices that can easily set the theme of a story alone. It was done very well within the Last of the Mohicans, as well as a string of other literary devices, creating the great classic that the story now stands as.

More Stuff on the H2O Project

This H2O project has not surprised me with some of the information that I have come across, but one of the biggest things that surprised me was about plastics. The website San Diego Coastkeeper has really opened my eyes on the hideous truth of littered plastic.
To start out, plastic does not biodegrade, it only breaks into smaller pieces of plastic. There is a place in the pacific ocean called the "Eastern Garbage Patch" that is full up of plastics, and it is roughly the size of Texas. These plastics are causing our world to ruin, along with many other littered items.
Things that I need to do in order to carry on my project are to keep working on my script, finalize interview questions, and get all of my filming done and ready to edit.

Thanksgiving Break

Thankfulness is not part of my personality. But if I had to be thankful for something, it would probably be for those people down in the south with the funny accents that made our country free from British rule, so we can all stuff our faces one day of the year.

The things that I will be doing over thanksgiving break would be:

1. Interview Surfrider
2. Film Dog Beach
3. Film SD Bay in the evening

Happy thanksgiving!

The Youth Vote

          After reading the article that we were assigned to read for this blog, An Eternal Revolution, it really got me thinking about the youth of our nation.  I recently have read an article on this called Waiting in Line, The Youth Vote Could Change History.  It talks about how the youth impacts the vote today, and how a huge change was brought about with the youth vote back in 1972.  This huge change was when they made the legal voting age 18, whereas the previous legal voting age was 21.  This change brought about a huge uprising in votes, much like the choice between a black and white president has within our society today. One of the biggest reasons also given for the big uprising in votes back in 1972 was the war that was being fought, and the amount of anti-war youth in our nation.

          This relates to our election because even with this election, there were very many controversial topics that were brought up during the election, much like the war in 1972, that our youth had a very strong opinion on.  There was also a large change in the way that our political system works, which was the choice of two different races running for president, much like the change in voting age from 21 to 18.

Examples For Water project

UFO Sightings in Utah Interview

CoD5 Interview

          Now, both of these videos are quite similar, and they are both almost exactly what I want to make my product into.  These video's qualities are made up of an interview, with pictures being displayed.  The specific question that I have to answer for this blog includes saying 3 things that I like and would use from each of these videos, so my answer to that is, 

1. Good clean interview, answering big questions (to those that care of course)
2. Pictures/visuals being displayed about the topic with interview playing as background audio
3. The combination of both keeping the viewer focused on watching the two videos

          I feel as if these things really help to make videos like this, because you are being fed information, while being entertained by pretty visuals, helping you comprehend what the information is.  

          Now, what I plan on doing, is making a video similar to these two, but in place of pictures, I would have steady camera shots of littered shoreline and clean shoreline.  I would also write a nice description of the results of my studies and have it in the video description.

(Sadly Polished) Super Secret Plans!

          The Water Project that we have been involved in for the past week or two is a really open ended project.  With the various water testing outings that we must embark on, we are left to devise an article, movie, art, writing piece of our own relating to something having to do with San Diego's beaches and at least one social issue.

          My project is going to be on pollution (trash) rates, and if they have been going up or down in major tourist beaches like Coronado compared to more filthily known beaches such as Dog Beach in Ocean Beach.

          The resources that I will need for this project will be a camera, to record interviews with people that will be mentioned later, a computer with ample video editing software, and a picture camera, in case the need arises for still frames in the video.  The people that I would like to interview would be some people from Surfrider, and people that commonly pick up trash with them.  I would also like to ask anyone else who are common beach goers.  I am not sure who these people would be, but I just need people who would know about the rates of trash, and whether there used to be more out over the beach or if there is more currently being put out.

          Now, I am supposed to create a specific as possible scheduel for the next two weeks, labeling each thing that I am going to do each day.  This is troubling to me.  The only thing that I know for sure would be that I am going to dog beach the 22nd, in order to talk to some of the Surfrider people, and to get good footage of trash pickup, and possibly pictures.  Some other things that I need to do would be to organize some trips to Coronado for water sampling there, because me, and another classmate, are working on something relating to those beaches, and there are no yet planned trips to get water tested there.  I would probably do that next week, and over the weekend.  Now that I think of it, (starting to ramble to myself) I am going to ask my biology teacher tomorrow about taking trips to Coronado for water testing, and find the chemical composition of that water, to compare it with Dog Beach, which is already being tested.  Then, sometime this weekend, ask my father, who is one of the parent drivers, if he is available to drive us up sometime next week to Coronado, for said testing.  While there I could maybe get some video or pictures.  So far that is the scheduel that I have, and plan on hopefully making it more specific later, or improvising a whole lot within the coming weeks.

The Presidential Results

Part One

          This presidential election wasn't very surprising to me, and neither was it very important.  To me, each presidential nominee had good and bad views, and whichever view of theirs was bad, the other had a good one on the same topic.  This whole presidential election leaves me indifferent to who won, awkwardly.  I do hope that Barack Obama can break us out of this economic crisis that we are in, and take us out of the Middle East without making everyone more angry at us than they really are.  My concerns are that somethings gonna go wrong (again) and this country will start going downhill even more, such as some other Middle Eastern country, or any other country for that matter, joining our conflict, or the stock market crashing even further (which will be terribly unlikely), or even having our oil sources cut off, leaving us to struggle for a new energy source for the entire country.

Part Two

          I feel as if I have a high level of civil knowlege.  Almost all I watch on television is the news, leaving me with quite a nice repository of recent events in my mind.  One of the things that I feel my Humanities class has done to help with the class as a whole with their civil knowlege, is this here blog.  The entire blogging project is civil knowlege based.  It is almost all about current events.  I feel as if it was a great idea to aid us as students with ways to learn about current events.  A way I feel like we could be better with the understanding with current events would be to nto have a journal every morning, and instead, have a discussion on the blog we did the night before, or discuss a specific current event that happened the day before.  Because of my great repository of current events mentioned earlier, I have felt very confident in my conversations with others on topics relating to current events.  I also have been a little frustrated with some peoples ignorance of current events, and others inability to understand anything but their opinion, but I also feel as if I can also be quite stubborn with learning others opinions over mine, and it seems like it is just human nature to be a little unwilling to accept others opinions.

Article Ideas

One of the two ideas that I have for the article that I have to do, is to discuss the topic of whether we are doing more work to clean up the beaches than to put out trash, thus resulting in a steady trend of cleaner beaches in San Diego.  This article idea seems a lot easier to research, and I am almost thinking of making a movie out of it, which would include me going out to one of the surfrider beach cleanups and interview people about the beaches and the rates of the trash.

Some Websites that I have found on beach pollution are,

USEPA

Surfrider Foundation

San Diego Coast Keeper

The second Idea that I have seems a little more unrealistic to me.  It seems unrealistic because of the research that would have to be done, and the factual inaccuracy that it would incur.  The idea would be how the beaches would be in 1000 years, then 10,000 years, and so on.  There will alwas be odd statistics saying that it is rising 2 cm a year or 4 inches every year, interfering statistics like this is what throws off research for a project such as this, which is why I am a little skeptical about the possibilities of this project.

Some websites I have found on Global warming and the Seas rising are,

New York Times

Melting Ice = Rising Seas? Easy. How Fast? Hard.

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

January 8, 2008, 12:24 AM

National Geographic

Global Warming Fast Facts

EDF

Global Warming Myths and Facts

The Real Voter Scandal

Here, I will discuss the real voter suppression problem. Unlike ACORN, this has become a cancer that has been forming in our country for the longest time. The problem that I am reffering to is GOP voter suppression. The GOP is a nice term for the house republicans up high on their chairs. The problem that we have with this issue is that the government themselves are suppressing votes.
It has been reported on The Nation, that "A recent report in the New York Times found that in some battleground states, for every new voter registered two other voters have been removed. Colorado, a state experiencing rapid population increases, has seen more than 100,000 voters erased from its rolls." The recent report that they are talking about from the New York Times starts with "Tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law." This somewhat proves that the government is trying to fix the polls by canceling out as many swing states as possible, so that there wont be a swing. Without a swing, theres no surprizes and the government can prepare for whats next. But without a swing, wheres the democracy? Where is the basis of what this country has been running on for years?
Really I don't see it, and that, to me, is unconstitutional, and unamerican. What happened to the great patriotic republican party that we all have come to know and love?

Sources:

UPDATED: Voter Suppression Growing Nationwide

Stop GOP Vote Suppression

States’ Actions to Block Voters Appear Illegal

Literary Devices Used in the Book Beloved

In this blog, I am going to be writing about an Honors class assignment, which was to read a good book with a lot of meaning behind it, and the literary devices used in that book to draw out the theme of the story. The book that I read was one called Beloved, by Toni Morrison, a writer with a very unique and interesting style, and I will be writing it assuming that you, the reader, will have at least the general idea of the book's plot line.
I would like to start, by stating what I think is the theme of the story. The theme of the story that I picked up, was the memories might be forgotten temporarily, but they never really go away. It was first pointed out to me in the beginning, during a part where the main character was explaining that "Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But it's not. Places, places are still there. If a house burns down, it's gone, but the place--the picture of it--stays, and not just in my rememory, but out there, in the world." The literary device used in this quote is character development. Now while that may not be quite so evident at first glance, if you really look at it, you will find what it is really saying. What I see it saying is that even if something that happened in your past, or even someone else' past for that matter, will have some sort of effect on your life. It is also not always direct either, because even if you "forget" what happened in the past, the physical thing will still always be there somewhere, whether it be where the event happened, or locked up under your kitchen sink, some remnant will always be there to remind you if you ever stumble on it again.
One major thing that is stumbled on many times in this book, and should be regarded as a major event in the stories time line, is the death, haunting and resurrection of the character Beloved. The character starts off as a ghost, but you quickly learn that it died as a child in the house, and no one knows why it stays and haunts. The reason this relates to the theme is because the baby gets exorcised out of the house not long after you learn about it, and then comes to life as a real living breathing person in part two of the book. Now the literary device that I found quite profound yet at the same time subtle, was the way that the style of writing changes from part one to part two of the book. In part one, the book keeps an nonrhythmic poem, slightly artistic to the keen reader, but not taking anything away from the main story. But, when the book goes from part one to part two, the book turns to more of a free verse, regular book style of writing. I feel as if this is a literary device that is almost critical to know about, because it is hidden, but it gives the book a different feel, depending on if it is at a positive or negative point in the story. I think that it was implemented very well by the author, and I really do like the way that it was done.
The last literary device that I would like to discuss would be the symbolism within the book. Being half poetry, there is bound to be symbolism in it. The specific symbol I found the most meaningful was the scars on Sethe, the protagonist's, back. It is described in such a manner that is unforgettable. It is described as a chokecherry tree, showing the reader exactly how it looks. Explaining how the roots of the tree grow up into a trunk, then sprout into branches, complete with leaves, sap and the rest of the works on a tree. It helps drive the theme out further by giving yet another vibrant example of a memory that might be forgotten, but will still always remain.
In conclusion, the methods used to bring out the theme of this book focused heavily on character development, yet also included devices such as symbolism and writing style changes.

The Nuts at ACORN and the Voter Suppression

The situation here is not as it seems. The great republican candidate, Senator McCain, claims Senator Obama, the democratic candidate, has huge ties with the ACORN organization. McCain claims that ACORN has committed one of the largest voting flaws in history. which was by falsifying votes, giving one person an advantage. Ridiculous. The only thing that actually happened was that ACORN employees sent in fake registration forms of their own handiwork in order to keep up with ACORN's standards. Acorns standards, is somewhere around every employee has to register 20 new voters every day. Do you think that is reasonable? There are somewhere over 35,000 ACORN employees working. 35,000 times 20 is 700,000 registrations a day. And this goes on for months at a time. Do you really think that there is that many unregistered voters out there? Some of the stories that I have read include stuff like this "In August 2004, election officials in Albuquerque, NM, discovered that an ACORN employee, Christina Gonzales, registered a 13-year-old boy to vote. This registration was only discovered by the boy’s mother when a voter card showed up in the mail. The card contained an incorrect social security number, a fabricated birthday, and only a partially correct address." from the Employment Policies Institute, and this "Part-time ACORN workers receive one day of training and are paid $8 an hour to collect signatures, according to Kettenring. He blamed bogus cards on cheating and lazy employees trying to make a buck for doing nothing." The problem is the employees, and not the company. Another thing is that ACORN isn't even allowed to get rid of registration forms that they themselves can see are fraudulent. According to Fact Check, "ACORN also says it cannot simply discard suspicious forms on its own, but is required by law in most states to submit to local election officials all the forms its canvassers bring in. ACORN's Whelan told us that its own legal counsel strongly advises that the group do the same in states that don't explicitly require it, because "only election officials are legally able to determine the validity of a voter registration application."" ACORN does claim that it flags the registration forms that appear to be fraudulent before sending them into the government officials, but it doesn't seem to be helping them out a whole lot with the election and John McCain blaming them for the "biggest voter fraud in history"

Sources:
UPDATED: The Real ACORN: Anti-Employee, Anti-Union, Big-Business
McCain makes exaggerated claims of "voter fraud." Obama soft-pedals his connections.
Inside Obama’s Acorn

These Presidential Debates (Again)

Final debate a lagging indicator of reality

By Tom Curry

National affairs writer

msnbc.com

updated 9:06 p.m. PT, Wed., Oct. 15, 2008          This Blog  is supposed to be about all of the presidential debates in their historical context, so I will rant about it for at least solid 5 minutes of typing, and still fit in as much of the current situation of the United States of America that I know of.          This story that I have linked to this blog is about the most recent debate, and about some of the things that McCain presented against Obama, and also about the various things such as the financial crisis.  This brings me to the historical context, or whats happening in our country now. Our country is in a state of turmoil.  Our economy is in the dumps, yet we are putting hundreds of billions of dollars into the market.  We do not have the money for oil, yet our country consumes 25% of the global yearly oil production.  Somewhere around 45% of our children are only accepted into college, leaving the rest with nowhere to go but the military.  Our military is spread across the Middle East, "protecting" everyone from terrorism.  We are under constant threat of terrorism, so our privacy is broken by the government in order to "catch" terrorists planning another attack.  We do not trust the government because of this, which is why both candidates are running for "change".  They plan on "changing" where our fuel sources come from, somewhat "fixing" our economy.  They plan on "changing" our economic policies, which is supposed to help people pay for college and schooling.  They plan on "changing" schooling policies, getting more kids into college with the money they put back into our pockets, in turn keeping us out of the military.  They plan on taking the United States out of the war in the Middle East as well as possible, letting people live their lives more towards their own standards, and not the governments.  Which still leaves the terrorists to deal with, but there will be terrorists untill the end of time, so are we really ever going to stop them?          All of this is a lot to fix, and both candidates have been fighting with whatever they have during the debates in order to win over the public.  My only message to the candidate voted into office is, Good Night and Good Luck.

The Internet!

The website I shall quote here is youtube, because it is the best example for the topic that I am writing on tonight.  

The McCain-Palin Mob

By Blogger Interrupted

          This series of videos displays peoples mere ignorance of the democratic running presidential candidate, but what it also shows, is the freedom that the internet has given to people to sway political opinion.  The internet has changed democracy in so many levels.  One of the simplest things it has changed is that now everyone can go to the presidential candidates websites (here and here).  Another thing that has changed, is the fact that people can put their own opinions on the internet, and no one can do anything about it.  This video for instance, is about a guy who went to two of the McCain, Palin Rallys, and asked everyone he could find if they thought that Obama was a terrorist.  He can publicise that because we have sites like Youtube now.  The internet has brought upon us an era of free speech and free information, and it affects todays democratic community by letting the populous know of the opinions of any person who wants to put out those opinions.

Reflection of the Newspaper Project

Here is a link to a revised copy of the newspaper.

Reflection:

          Our newspaper project was about the Lincoln Douglas debates. We were supposed to make a newspaper front page telling the story about a specific debate that we were pre-assigned. The debate that we were assigned was the 4^th debate, the one that took place in Charleston.

          My role in this project was, in a sense, the editor in chief. What I did was organize who was doing what story, and then put it in to the paper. Along the way I helped out some people on what to research and helped edit everyones paper.

          The good things that I feel like I accomplished with this project was that I kept everyone on task and punctual with their articles, so we had plenty of relaxing time in the end where some others did not have it. Another good thing was that I was one of the two groups of people that put a newspaper esque background texture, which really pulled the paper together and made it stand out from all of the other papers. The texture also did not hinder the reader in their reading capabilities because of flaws in the texture, like the other paper with a background texture did. I also organized the paper such as a real legitimate paper quite nicely and I feel like it really shows off my talents, as well as flaws, which I will explain in the next paragraph.

          The problems that I had with this project were all based off of me not looking at the final product well enough after “finishing” it. The biggest flaw that I still had in it was a border around a text box that ended up cutting through a pull quote, which is a huge mistake on my part and could have been easily solved if I had just looked over the project one last time. Another thing which isn't much of a flaw is that there was a caption under the first image on the top half of the front page, and I feel like it is a bit too pushed away from the image, and should be pushed more toward the image to more legitimize the paper, as far as looks go.

          I did more than just edit and put the paper together. Another thing that I did for this paper was search for images of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglass, and help make headlines for the stories with another member of the group. A lot of the work was really laid back, with resources such as pod casts not needing a lot of attention to understand, it was really easy to do research on the subject. Picture searching was also simple, but it was sometimes a little difficult to find an image someone else did not already find yet. Since there aren't very many pictures of Stephen Douglass on the internet, I ended up as one of the 3 or 4 groups that had the same picture of him, but I did end up with a completely original picture of Abraham Lincoln in my article.

The Candidates Still Acting Like Children

Health Care Spin

– by Lori Robertson

October 14th, 2008

          Really guys? Are we still doing this? On a post on Fact Check today, Lori Robertson claimed that the presidential candidates have misstated the others health care plans, making each of their followers stray even further from knowing the truth, and more towards ignorance.

          The article states, "McCain proposes a market-based system that relies on tax incentives, which one Obama ad falsely characterizes as the "largest middle-class tax increase in history." Obama proposes new subsidies to expand private insurance coverage and some expansion of government insurance, which McCain falsely claims "will rob 50 million employees of their health coverage."

          Each of these acts is a disgrace to each of the presidential nominees, because they are, yet again, robbing the people of their knowlege of the truth.  Every democrat that sees the Obama ad criticising McCain of something he wasn't going to do is going to think that McCain is worse of a person than they already thought he was, and vice versa, but for all of those undecided people out there, they don't know which candidate they are going to vote for yet, and if they get fed false information, they will for sure be thrown in with the crowd voting for the wrong reason.  I almost promise you, that if they keep doign this whole blame game thign throughout the end of the election, which is likely, then I will be very angry.  Already I am torn between each of the two candidates, but that is because they each have different views that I agree and disagree on, and whith all of these false claims I will never be able to make a firm choice.

Little bit of political comedy here:

The Presidential Race of Senatorial Significance

          In class, we have been talking a lot about the senatorial race between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas.  I was assigned in the past week to help fellow students write the frontpage of a (unofficial) newspaper about the 4th debate that Lincoln and Douglas had.  This debate took place in Charleston Illinois, and the area was really "negrophobic," or didn't like black people, which really matters with this debate because Lincoln was trying to bring about the end to slavery, even though he claimed the entire process to take over 100 years, and Douglas, who was really for slavery and keeping the United States segregated, claimed to be for a popular vote method, where Illinois would decide with the people whether they want to keep slavery or not.

          Lincoln, who claimed to "...say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied every thing. I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife." This really is almost a turning point for a lot of people in America, because a lot of those "Average Joes" out there think that Lincoln was a revolutionary who was completely for equality and was completely against slavery in its entirety.  He was still a revolutionary in his own right just by saying slavery is wrong, but he still was not as high and mighty as everybody nowadays thinks he was.

          This blog is 

also supposed to be about this years presidential elections, and as I am a little unaware as to how to transition between the two subjects, so this will be my transition.  

          

       This presidential race has turned out to be one of the most important 

races in years.  With the war on terror and the financial crisis going on, it gets even bigger with the first African American running for president.  My views at tthe moment on this presidential race are really open minded.  I do not have a preference, being independant party, and judge candidates based solely off of what their views are.

        I think that John McCain does have more experience than Obama in a lot of catagories, such as war and how politics should be ran, and how they have been running.  But I also think that Obama knows a little more about the lower things in political eyes such as tax cuts for the less wealthy and better education.  Each presidential candidate has good views on some things, but what they lack good views in, the other makes up for it.  This is the biggest reason why I am undecided on this specific presidential election at the moment, and that is what I think of this election.

Transcript for Lincoln Douglas Debate

The Economic Crisis

This coming election day will be a great turning point for at least one group of people, this blog post will be talking about one of those groups.  The group that I am talking about is the middle to lower class. According to American Fact Finder,  about 60% of all households in America earn between $10,000 to $75,000 a year on average.  According to The Washington Post, Obama plans to raise the bracket for high end earners in the United States, making anyone earning $250,000 a year "would pay 6.2 percent in payroll taxes on their entire income."  

What does this mean to the middle and lower class?  What this means is someone else will be paying more so they won't have to.  It is an easy way to level out the ratio between poor and rich in this country, and we need that in a time like this.

OBAMA TAX PLAN RAISES BIG BRACKET

By CHARLES HURT Bureau Chief

June 14, 2008

Schools Now Becoming More Segregated Than Ever

          Whether you know it or not, we are all still segregated in this country. If you can remember, the civil rights movement was fraught with segregation in almost every industry out there, including education. Within the next few paragraphs I will take you, the reader, on a journey through segregation in schools during the civil war, and segregation in schools now.

What Happened Then

          One of the biggest cases back in the civil rights movement was of brown vs education, which changed the educational community forever. It all started because the northern supreme court came up with the though of actually making the schools interracial. This is a quote from the first few lines of the court papers “Segregation of white and Negro children in the public schools of a State solely on the basis of race, pursuant to state laws permitting or requiring such segregation, denies to Negro children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment - even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors of white and Negro schools may be equal.”(1)

          One revolutionary person that you may know of is a girl

 called Ruby Bridges. She was the first black girl to attend an all white school. The school she attended was William Frantz Elementary, New Orleans, and the white population had a huge reaction to this. “Sure enough, people shouted and shook their fist when we got out of the car, but to me it wasn't any noisier than Mardi Gras, I held my mother's hand and followed the marshals through the crowd, up the steps into the school.” says Bridges, in March of the year 2000. She then goes on to talk about what happened that day and the next day.

What's Happening Now

          After all of that, we still have problems with racial segregation in schools today, and you could say a big part of it is still based off of racial stereotypes retaining from long ago. According to a recent story from the American Broadcasting Corporation, “Kathleen Brose's 14-year-old daughter was turned away from her neighborhood school in Seattle after the district effectively issued a stark decree: no more white students allowed.”(3) According to the census taken on factfinder.cencus.gov, the white population takes up about 73.9% of the population of the United States of America(4) (with a 0.1 margin of error) and according to a classmate, Jonathan Aguila's blog, "...If you look at the data you would notice that this is mainly because it is based on where you live ... from what I see it is fixed on what is the dominant ethnic group in the state or city."(5). This information is really conflicting with the methods that schools have been undertaking recently. What I am talking about is the fact that schools and colleges alike are undertaking the “Equal Opportunity” method, which is to take in minority students as the majority of their student population.

          In conclusion, I believe that this system is futile, because of two reasons. The first is the fact that they are leaving out the majority of the population, and second, it is becoming segregated yet again, which is against the 14^th amendment and against what America now stands for.

For more information on Ruby Bridges, find the Ruby Bridges: Through My Eyes documentary at your nearest movie store, or at RubyBridges.com

Citations:

• United States Supreme Court. "FindLaw | Cases and Codes."FindLaw: Cases and Codes. 17 May 1954. 2 Oct. 2008 <http://laws.findlaw.com/us/347/483.html>.
  
• Bridges, Ruby. "Ruby Bridges."Ruby Bridges . 30 Sep. 2008 .
  
• (3) "ABC News: Debate Over Segregation in Schools to Hit Supreme Court Today." ABC News: Online news, breaking news, feature stories and more. 1 Oct. 2008 .
• (4) U.S. Cencus Bureau, ed. "United States by State -M0201, Percent of the Total Population Who Are White Alone: 2006." U.S. Cencus Bureau. 2 Oct. 2008 .
  
• (5)Aguila, Jonathan. "jonathan."jonathan. 2 Oct. 2008. 2 Oct. 2008 .

New Privacy Law/Ammendment?

THE SUPREME COURT:

 THE FOURTH AMENDMEN

T; Police Violate Privacy in Home Raids With

 Journalists

By LINDA GREENHOUSE

Published: May 25, 1999

          This article is about

 police and how they are breaking the 4th amendment when they break into a persons house for an arrest or raid with a journalist or photographer in company in order to take a record of the arrest or raid.

          An assignment that was assigned to us in Humanities class recently was to create a law or amendment that would protect peoples privacy.  I took this very literally, on purpose of course, and made up an amendment that would completely bar everything and anything the government could try to do to get into any ones property.  The amendment that I made up went a little something like this.

          No man, woman, child or government worker is allowed to intrude on the property of another man, woman, child or government worker, where the words intrude and property are defined by the citizen being intruded upon.  Furthermore no loopholes may be exploited in this ammendment, where loophole and exploit are also being defined by the citizen being intruded upon.

          This amendment will never even have a chance to be passed by the government, but it would be almost impenetrable as an amendment.  Upon judicial review this amendment would be almost immediately abolished, because it literally gives the government or anybody else for that matter any leeway with any case that requires searching property.  No one would be able to commit anyone of anything because no one would be able to search anothers house.

          For anyone that may reply to this blogpost, try and leave a privacy amendment of your own, I would be glad to add it into this post (with proper credit given of course) and will post what might happen if the amendment would go under judicial review.

Reflections and Ideas

Well, there are no odd or even political stories for this blog post, but it is actually going to be a reflection on the blog as a whole.

The first question that I must answer in this reflection is, "What are you most proud of on your blog? Why?".  The answer to this is simple.  The thing that I am proud of most on my blog is that this blog post, the one that you are reading, is not my 7th blog post, but actually my 8th.  I actually have one extra blog post than required, and that is because I have found a subject that I am really interested in, but I could not find any evidence for it that related to the prompt that I had to work off of.  So now I am completely in to one of the subjects that I have brought up on this blog, the Anonymous group, and I plan to continue posting blogs about them, even if I don't have a prompt for it.  That is what I am proud of on my blog

The second question that I have to answer is, "What would you like to improve on your blog? Why? How?"  And the answer is simple, yet again.  The thing that I know I need to improve on is more media.  If I just put in more pictures and videos, maybe a news feed on the side or bottom of my blog, this blog page would be a lot more interesting than just text.  And to start the newly founded tradition, I will place a picture, which may or may not have something to do with politics, here.

The final question that I will answer during this reflection is, "How can we better connect our class' blogs?"  My theory on how we could do this, is that we should have Randy, our teacher, make a blog post.  Then, everyone would need to respond to that blog post in their blog on tuesdays.  Then, on thursdays, we could have everybody respond/reply to a classmates tuesday blogpost in a blog post of their own again.  This way, we would be doing less prompted posts, but we would be a lot more involved with each others blog, and getting a better understanding of everyone elses viewpoints, and we would definately be more connected in our blogs.

McCain Overstating His Ads, Again...

There He Goes Again

September 18, 2008

– by Joe Miller

This article talks about how John McCain's political warfare ads have , yet again, overstated Barack Obama's tax plan.

First, McCain's ad states that Obama will raise taxes on electricity, which Obama has not stated. Second, McCain's ad states that Obama will raise Home Heating Oil taxes on families, but Obama has actually proposed a thousand dollar rebate on heating oil. Third, the ad states that Obama will raise taxes on all "life savings," while he really is only going to raise it slightly on couples who earn more than 250 thousand dollars yearly, or singles who earn more than 200 thousand dollars yearly.

These kinds of stories are the ones that really get me riled up, mainly because it is these people, these lying manipulating people, that are going to be leading the entire country.  Now it isn't just McCain that has had some untruthful ad's, Obama has also had some, but even so, neither of them should have any false advertisements.  

One thing to note about this is what is this supposed to say about our society?  Are we people who have to lie in order to get anywhere?  How are we compared to any other society?  Will we stay like this forever?

These are just a few of the questions that cannot be answered by only one person, but need to be answered soon.