Stage Eight: Second Comment

As said in my colleague's blog, I agree that we should protect and honor the First Amendment right for every American citizen. People should not be condemned because of their religion. Just because they have a different belief system is no means to regard them as subordinates. People have always judged groups based on the extremists of those groups, when in reality the majority of the people are well mannered and civil. As we see almost on a weekly bases, Muslims are severely under attack by anti-Muslim propaganda, blaming all those who follow the religion for  September 11, 2001. We have seen anti-Muslim practices increased over the last few years from inappropriate slurs, to the preacher that burned to Koran publicly. this public indecency has not only not been told to quit, but rather enforced by favoring those people who speak ill about the Islamic religion. As my colleague states, "we have settled on a scapegoat." Americans are blaming Muslims for many of our country's issues, when in reality, the elites who are doing the name-calling, are the ones to blame. Our diversity is even growing, the census has proved that we are becoming more diverse in different ways. We should honor this standing achievement because in most countries, those minorities would be prosecuted just for being different. How can we call ourselves Americans when we are doing the exact same thing? How is it that America prides its self on being the country of immigrants when we do not accept them for equals?

Stage Seven: Second Editorial

The energy crisis in America has escalated to staggering heights in the past few years. Even these past few months the price of oil, and in return gasoline, has sky rocketed because of the conflicts in the Middle East. As every major politician has said, America's dependencies on foreign oil is too high. But can we really become a self-sufficient country for energy? In my opinion, American will always depend on foreign oil. The amount of dependency is debatable. For years America has researched other energy sources such as wind, solar and nuclear power. But most other energy sources are insufficient to undertake the majority of America's population. While driving out into more rural areas of Texas, one will cross many small oil drills. They might be still in production but most of the drills are at a standstill. We are depleting the natural resource that we consider so vital to our everyday lives and we do not even realize it. Instead of seeing used up oil drills, I would like to see wind mills producing energy. In the plains of Texas there is bound to be enough wind that we should at least power some of the smaller towns with. Granted that wind energy is not very reliable, it could at least cut some of the need of oil. Solar energy is also unreliable due to weather. But like wind energy it can help cut the need of oil or gasoline. We see more solar panels around than we do wind mills, for example the school limit signs, on houses, even some calculators are solar powered. Living in Texas all of my life, I can vouch that we get enough sun to produce massive amounts of energy to help our houses running. Solar energy might not be the wisest of uses in Washington state or Oregon, but in some parts of the country I truly believe that it can help reduce our energy crisis. With nuclear power there comes more risk. It is expensive as well as dangerous to produce. With the meltdown of the power plant in Japan, and all the chemicals pouring into the Pacific Ocean, it is hard to stand up for this energy source when it is causing so much damage. Like I said, there are more risks, but the power it produces is so much more compared to wind and solar energy. Nuclear power has the capability to help larger cities for longer periods of time.

Nuclear, wind and solar power are great hopes in reducing our energy crisis and dependencies on foreign oil to fuel most of the country.

Stage Six: Comment on Colleagues

As my colleague states in her blog, I also believe that marijuana should be legalized. Julie Warlick brings up many positive things about marijuana effecting the economy, jails and criminals, medical benefits, as well as stating how it could be regulated. She says that if marijuana is legalized and taxed around where alcohol and tobacco are taxed then there would be a massive revenue to decrease the country's debit. There have been many studies proving this to be true. Since California legalized marijuana they have seen a major rise in the economy. Warlick continues to talk about how that there would be less criminals in our jails so less expense for prisons and more time for the police to worry about more serious crime. I certainly agree that we would not have to spend more taxes on prisons because of marijuana, as well as legalization would make it so there would be less "criminals". As for the medical benefits of marijuana, it is shown to help glaucoma, cancer patients and depression. I feel that if people with serious illnesses benefit from marijuana it should not be illegal. It does not cure the disease, but it helps the patients cope with their illness. Warlick even describes how marijuana can be regulated. She brings to the table that the FDA can help regulate proportions and keep it at a safe strength. She also suggests that there could be an age limit like alcohol and tobacco. I feel that the age limit is a good idea. Although teenagers are the ones who smoke most often, I think that if we enforce the limit that we can keep marijuana safe for everybody.

Stage Five: Original Editorial

No Child Left Behind Act was created to help public education reach higher standards of teaching and learning by having standardized testing in each state for the students. The act aids the schools that are inadequate as well as rewarding money to the schools that surpass the qualifications with flying colors. Although not all the states are requiring these standardized tests, a majority of states are improving the ability and the skills of teachers that are not on a collegiate level. Many states are making it mandatory that teachers take tests for the subject they intend on teaching. I believe that while this act was intended to do good by the less fortunate, it is extremely harmful to the majority of the public schools. The schools that need the money from this act are not receiving it. The less fortunate schools are struggling to fund their programs that are lacking in participation because the curriculum is lacking. The schools that have a strong base curriculum do not have as hard as time raising funds because the participation is higher in those schools. Because of the standardized tests, teachers focus so much on the subjects on the test the students miss out on other aspects of learning and are forced to put all their efforts on a single test. While all these factors place high importance on the one test, is it really showing what students are capable of? As a student myself, I have taken these standardized tests and feel that tests like the TAKS show nothing. It is not challenging and I feel like they are a waste of time. What schools need are entrance and exit exams in each course using the curriculum that is taught in that course specific to that teacher. Only then we will know how students are succeeding  and what the schools need to improve

Stage Four: Critique an Editorial From a Blog

On a blog from thinkprogress.org, the author describes his opinion on taxing options. He believes that the best way to decrease the deficit is to raise the taxes on the wealthier people in America. He shows us proof that this idea is wiser than ideas the republicans are suggesting by showing the amount of money the new taxes would be greater in comparison to the amount of money that the republican's ideas would bring in. The author tells us what the republicans are trying to cut in a slant to prove his is the best, but at least we have an idea on what the republicans want to do; republicans want to cut education and benefits for the poor instead of putting heavier taxes on the wealthy. He then starts describing, almost idolizing, the democrats idea for decreasing the deficit. the author shows us and interview and a couple of graphs showing how taxing the rich is the best idea. He throws many names and graphs around in order to prove his point, which possibly shows that he lacks creditability himself. On the other hand, this shows that he has taken the time to research this issue thoroughly and completely in order to establish an opinion rather than not knowing the subject and spitting out his opinion, which is what most bloggers do nowadays. His audience is mainly democrats, as this is a liberal blog site, but I also think it is for anyone who wants to read it because if he persuades enough people he will be able to see the plan he is promoting work out. The blog post could also be directed at republicans to show that there is a better way to save money and decrease the deficit rather than cutting education and retirement costs.

I agree with the author because it will decrease the national debit by gaining money from wealthier Americans. As a student, I feel that we should not cut education costs to decrease the deficit because education is much more important than the wealthy having an extra million dollars to throw around. If the wealthy were taxed more it would solve our problems much quicker than cutting other programs. As well as decreasing the national debit, heavier taxes on the wealthy will also decrease the gap of wealthy and poor in this country which, we can all agree, is increasing each day.

Stage Three: Critique an Editoral

In the editorial Fair to Muslims on the New York Times website, it is said that the author of the editorial is Muslim and it described his views of touring different mosques around America. He goes on to say that Muslims are treated unfairly due to the lack of knowledge Americans have about the Islam faith. I strongly agree with this editorial because I think every deserves to be treated fairly with respect, and frankly, we could all use a lesson in a faith different from our own. In my world history class last year we learned about many different religions, including Islam. It opened our minds to the similarities of the religion to many others. It helped us realize that every group has extremists and to not judge an entire religion on the extremists when most Muslims do not agree with what they are doing. In the editorial the author discusses different interviews they took while traveling. Many interviewees thought America was the best thing in their lives and they love living here. They also praised Thomas Jefferson for being a protector of religious freedom. While many Muslims think very highly of America, they have also been prosecuted for their religion. Women and children have being attacked verbally and physically because of their traditional attire or just because of their faith. The interviewees even commented on government officials or other agents came into their mosques to try to find terrorists. The agents snuck into the mosques and tried to trick it out of the members, the members felt insulted that they were not open enough to just ask the questions up front. I believe, as does the author, if everyone understood the religion more fully that we could more peacefully coexist with each other.

Stage Two: Article Introduction

Obama has proposed a plan to have the Health Care bill more flexible between states. He stated that if the state governments could think of a way to cover health care with the same or more coverage, same or less cost and same or more availability as the federal health care bill, all without increasing the nation's debt, the states will be allowed to do so. While the due date was originally in 2017, Obama has pushed it to three years earlier, making the deadline 2014. If all of the requirements are met before the year 2014, the governor will have the choice to turn down the health care bill in their respective states. While Obama says that he is willing to work with anyone to try to improve the health care bill, many say that it is too soon to know if any states will complete this task.

I feel that this article is important to read because it tells the people the status and feelings towards the health care bill. It also shows that Obama is willing to work it out so the maximum amount of people are happy with the bill. This concerns American Government because it is a big controversy among Americans and the bill and this new proposal are in the hands of our government today.