Causing Problems for Candidates

I agree with my classmate’s blog about the over exaggeration of race and gender in the Democratic primaries. I think that the media over inflates these issues and exaggerates in order to gain more viewers. Unfortunately, this leaves candidate’s actual political views in the background. This is inappropriate, as we are deciding on the potential leader of our country, not a popularly contest between African Americans and girls.

Lowering the Age!

I believe that the United States ought to lower the drinking age to eighteen and implement a responsible drinking program, not alcohol abstinence, in high school. Much like lowering the voting age to eighteen, it seems unreasonable that a citizen can join the military and die for his or her country, yet still not be able to go to the grocery store to legally pick up a six pack.

Evidence suggests that the drinking age being twenty-one is no more beneficial than a drinking age of eighteen. In fact, the District of Columbia produced a report that showed a positive correlation between higher drinking ages and higher single–vehicle fatalities. And let’s face it, kids are going to get a hold of alcohol before they are legally of age, and lowering the drinking age would diminish the lure of doing something forbidden.

A progressive classroom education on the realities of drinking would be a necessary component, so that young adults would be better equipped to drink responsibly. “Just say no to alcohol” programs are not helpful for students. What students need are the facts so that they can make their own responsible decisions.

Only eight countries in the world have a drinking age as high as 21 (The United States, Indonesia, Oman, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Fiji, and Kiribati) while most other developed countries have a drinking age of eighteen. The United States should emulate these countries and change the drinking age to eighteen as well.

Not my tax dollars!

I completely agree with my classmate’s blog about financial aid for sex offenders, in that I, too, would rather fund a drug addict’s education than a sex offender’s. I think that it is outrageous that these people are getting things from the government when they have already proven that they are a threat to other citizens. I find the very idea to be disgusting.

While I do agree that this could potentially cause some injustice with sex offenders charged with statutory rape of a technically consenting underage teenager, what they have done is still illegal in the eyes of the government and many of these people are still predators.

I volunteer with a rape and domestic violence crisis center. There are many barriers to proving and convicting a person of a sex crime in the United States, and in fact, most predators get off scott free. It is terrible to think that those who have committed a crime vicious enough to have actually been convicted are somehow given a leg up by the society that they have harmed.

Big Kids = Big Costs

According to the Surgeon General’s website, in 1999 14% of children ages twelve to nineteen were overweight or obese. While one might consider obesity to be a personal issue, not a government issue, in 2001 the economic cost of obesity in Texas, according to the Department of State Health Services website, was estimated around $10.5 billion and it is estimated that the cost will rise to $15.6 billion by 2010! Not to mention, these children are at a high risk for heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and cancer which are all costly problems that could be prevented.

I believe that the public educational system is contributing to this rise in childhood obesity. For most children the cause of obesity is a lack of exercises and eating too much unhealthy food. In many elementary schools across the United States, recess, a time for students to run around and play, is being cut in favor of more academic time for students.

There are elementary schools in Atlanta that are being built without playgrounds. Recess is a primary time for children to go outside and be active, and schools are eliminating it. Furthermore, public schools sport many non-nutritious lunch menus, with food like pizza, chili, and nachos. This is an unhealthy diet for these children, and, coupled with their loss of recess, it's no wonder that so many of these children are becoming overweight.

The United States needs to take a stand against this problem of overweight and obese children by making sure that schools offer healthy lunches and have enough time at school to exercise. These simple preventative measures could save many people from major illnesses and save the economy from these preventable illness costs.

Huh? -- Stage 3

In the New York Times there is an article concerning a law professor at George Washington University, George Duffy, who has uncovered a fundamental flaw in the appointment of judges in charge of patent appeals and arguments. The flaw suggests that the current method of appointment of these patent judges is unconstitutional.

Unfortunately, due to the confusing wording of this article, I am not entirely sure what the flaw is. I do not believe it is because I have missed something, I have read the article several times, I simply think that this article is badly written. The article begins by examining Mr. Duffy and his works as a law professor, and then continues by explaining the possible impact that could arise because of this uncovered flaw. “The problem Professor Duffy identified at least arguably invalidates every decision of the patent court decided by a three-judge panel that included at least one judge appointed after March 2000.” This sounds important, too bad I don’t know why.

The author then continues by describing the government’s unwillingness to comment. Then the author outhlines the rules for appointment for judges, though not the judges that the article is supposed to be discussing. No, the author discusses tax judges. There is a short paragraph suggesting that there has been a new law concerning the patent appointments, and that it is unconstitutional, but there is no description in this article as to why this is unconstitutional.

I, on the whole, found this article to be terribly irritating. I kept waiting for an explanation to understand what the “flaw” actually was, but I never received one. I have actually begun to wonder if the author even knows what he’s talking about.

Better salaries make better teachers?

The education system in the United States is in a lamentable state, with many who speculate on how to make it better. Some opinions suggest that smaller class sizes or more technology in the classroom would be an effective way to improve public education.

Another option comes from an article I have read in the New York Times. The article is about a new charter school in New York that is experimenting with the option of paying its teachers more than twice the US average and minimizing school administration and school administration salary. The article is mostly neutral on whether this will be a successful venture or not. The article is also fairly muted on the possible consequences of this experiment.

In this new charter school, teachers will be paid a salary of $125,000 while the principal will only be paid a salary of $90,000. Teachers will be doing the work traditionally done by supporting administration, so that the number of basic administration workers will be minimal. In fact, the reason teachers will be so well paid is because the school does not have to spend money on the salaries of basic administration. This has allowed the school to be very selective in hiring teachers. How often do public schools have PhD teachers competing for job openings?

It is obvious that current administration from other schools in New York feel threatened by this new school’s set up. They are vocally critical of the low salary of the school’s principal and the lack of supporting administration.

The author uses quotations from teachers and administration in order to voice both sides of the argument debating whether or not paying teachers a higher salary and administration a lower salary will improve the educational system. But through this use of quotation, the author does an incredible job of creating an underling subtext of the desire for new education system versus the current administration’s desire not to loose its power.

The school should be a very valid experiment on whether or not a higher salaried teachers get better results from students than those paid at today’s average, because the school will mostly be serving children from low income families and class sizes will still be around thirty. This will remove the concern that high numbers of students per class is the cause of unsatisfactory education, and because students from low income families traditionally do not do well in the public education system, success or failure will be easy to measure.

Coulter Gets a Laugh

I would first like to say that I do not like Ann Coulter. I generally consider her pointed rudeness to lack class, such as in the title of her books like How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must,) Godless: The Church of Liberalism, etc.

However, for this assignment I decided to read her blog. I had never read it before, and I will admit that it made me laugh out loud on several occasions. Frankly, my amusement may have been in part derived from my relative dislike for this woman.

On her blog, Ms. Coulter writes about how the nomination of McCain is practically blasphemy to the Republican party. She believes that, “nominating McCain is the gesture of a desperate party,” and the majority of her post is ranting about the many times the McCain has made liberal decisions during his political career.

She often attempts to inspire irony in her writing, but because I am mostly liberal, these instances tended to just be amusing to me, like this line in particular: “The only site that would have been more appropriate for Schwarzenegger in endorsing McCain would have been in front of an abortion clinic.”

I would definitely suggest Ms. Coulter’s blog for a good laugh.