ACORN Scandal vs. Vote-Suppression

Before I go into depth about the ACORN scandal vs. voter suppression, it's very important that we know what they are. The ACORN scandal starts with a non-profit organization that register people to vote. The people who work there are paid from $8.00 and $13.00 an hour for collecting registration forms. There is a problem though, with this freedom, it is quite possible for these people, depending on their views when it comes to elections, could choose not to register some forms or vice versa. It is stated in The New York Times that according to Project Vote, in 2006, 71 percent of eligible whites were registered compared to 61 percent blacks, 54 Latinos and Asian Americans. So this raises questions for us Americans, " Are ACORN's employees trustworthy? Do they take any actions to avoid voter fraud? and "Who does ACORN benefit the most." Well, I got answers for you. Yes, some employees can be trusted while others cannot. According to Factcheck, Obama has "long and deep" connections with this organization so that would lead me to believe that Democrats are the main people ACORN touches base with meaning the Republicans don't have connections with this organization. Washington Post says, ACORN itself has acknowledged problems, noting that in Nevada "there have been several times over the past ten months that our Las Vegas Quality Control program has identified a canvasser who appears to have knowingly submitted a fake or duplicate application in order to pad his or her hours." ACORN says it phones those who sign voter registration cards to verify that the applications are valid and flags the questionable registrations for election officials. Which has me thinking that ACORN rarely avoids voter fraud.

On the otherhand, Voter Suppression is when the government or any other organization discourages or stop citizens from voting. A recent story that took place in Georgia talks about a girl who was going to vote for the first time, however, she received a letter from the mail saying that she was not a citizen of the United States and therefore not able to vote. She later realized that a computer mismatch was made in their personal identification information. This is a scenario that is constantly being repeated across the nation meaning that voting supression grows that way.

The Nixon Vs. Kennedy Debates and Biden vs. Palin

As I read about both the Nixon vs. Kennedy debates and the Biden vs. Palin debates I noticed that they are very similar, even though the Nixon/Kennedy debates took place in 1960. One of the more apparent similarities include the amount of viewers that tuned in because of Kennedy's good looks which also seems to be a factor for these recent debates when it comes to Palin's looks. Also, since television just came out back then, people were much more drawn to it than they were to the radio. When they heard Nixon speaking on his first debate on the radio they thought he won, until Kennedy was seen on TV and was later known as a charismatic and very smooth speaker. Today, in America's society, I think more people focus on looks rather than speech, especially when it came to the vice presidential debates. Because of this thinking of mine that looks play a great part in politics, then Sarah Palin, being a woman would grab people's attention and oblivious people who aren't truly passionate about what's actually being said in the debates, will be pulled in by her looks and think little about how she views different topics. Also, the fact that television was the new cool thing to use for information, internet today is like the cool thing for people today. We can easily log on to get information about any topic we wish to search and our freedom is definitely expanded through this thing called the internet. So my point being, that even though we have similarities, it's also good for us to keep in mind that what the candidates say is what will help our country, not their looks.

The Internet's Effects on technology and Democracy...

How has the Internet affected the way Americans approach democracy?

In my opinion, I think that the Internet has been like a catalyst that has sparked people's way of thinking, especially when it comes to democracy. For example people are able to look at different Internet sites and compare them, and then from there decide where they stand, based on the information they read. I think that this presidential campaign has drawn people in more and more because one group of people say one thing and another group say something else, that's why I feel like the debates have been a hit this year because citizens, especially the “undecided” ones are more tuned to hearing from the actual candidate. According to New York Times, Republicans and Democrats are increasing their use of Internet through interactive websites, candidate and party blogs, and assembling crowds for rallies. They say that the Internet is a more efficient and less costly than traditional tools of politics such as door knocking and telephone banks.

How does the Internet and its effects fit into the historical context of technology and democracy in America?

Since the Internet is a more recent development compared to telephones and rallies, people I think are going to be more drawn to it just because its a newer quicker way to communicate. So when comes to things like elections, candidates will rely more on the Internet to get information out to get more people behind them. Also, telephones can't be used to call a big number of people at once and the Internet can easily do that. Although its hard for us to admit sometimes, we'd rather communicate online or text message than take the time to pick up the phone and talk because our world today has to go fast and nothing else.

Newspaper Reflection

For this newspaper mini project, as a group of four I feel like we all contributed an equal amount of work to make the newspaper come to life. Personally, I wrote one of the incorporated articles and helped look for different ads and images that could be put in it to make it look more pleasing to the eye and make it look like a modern-day newspaper. I was also the editor of the group, so as the editor I looked over the writing portion of the newspaper and made sure it was clear, understandable to the audience, and followed a the newspaper format.
If there was ever a next time for this project, I would definitely like to spend more time editing the whole written part of the newspaper because I mainly focused on my part of the writing, which isn't fair to my teammates. The headlines could've been more eye-catching because since it is the main focus of the paper and it's in bold letters, people are going to be drawn to it and if it's not interesting, then people won't be excited to take the time to continue reading the newspaper. We also could've put much more color and more creative fonts to make it look good-especially since we had a whole week to work on it.
As I look back at my process throughout this project, I don't think I used my resources as well as I would've liked to. There were some days when I didn't do anything because I felt like my part was done and one of my group members was pretty much just taking on the next step of the project after I had already done the first part.
To have a better turn out with this project, I think that I would've liked to get better education on In-design so that on days when I'm not doing much I could at least be more productive and help the person who's designing the newspaper. I think that I also should have spent more of the time that I was not doing anything to look at the actual newspaper to see how it could be made better because the end product wasn't as professional and well-organized as I hoped it would be. So with that said, since I know where our weaknesses are, I think our second draft could be a close to perfect newspaper.

What has Sparked my attention so Far this Year?

So far this year in Randy Scherer's humanities class I have learned so many interesting things. However, there is one particular topic that stood out to me more than the others. This was the excerpt, "Dying For Dixie" that was taken from the book Confederates in the Attic. The story about the death of Michael westerman shocked me. I thought it was immature of Michael Westerman to be so naive to the fact that carrying a confederate flag in the back of his truck was offensive to the blacks in the town, specifically Freddy Morrow. Westerman was fired from his job after cursing at the restaurant's cook and referring to her as "nigger!" Morrow shot Westerman for his actions and now suffer the consequences in prison for the rest of his life. If this had taken place back when slavery was a bigger issue, than I would have more understanding for Westerman's rude behavior and Morrow's rash decision to murder. But because this story took place in 1995, it just shows me that violence and revenge are taken too far just as a way for people to build up their egos and feel better. When really I think that deep down inside they hurt, but they just don't want to show it.

http://dcn.davis.ca.us/~gizmo/1999/horwitz.html

Demographics-Do they Matter?

When it comes to the elections, I think the demographics between both candidates will be questioned by many citizens. As a person under the leadership of one of the candidates, I would want to have a clear picture of what Obama and McCain are doing economically. Obama was raised by a single parent, his grandma. According to these graphs 54% of children live in low income families. So because he went through a difficult life where his grandma had to give up what she wanted in order to put food on the table, it seems more likely that he would feel more sympathy for people who went through what he did. Concerning McCain, he might show a little bit more fairness to the people than Obama would, but also have more sympathy for soldiers because he was in the military.

Questions:
Is Demographics also practiced in different countries? When do the people of the state fill out a survey about all their household information?

The Lincoln-douglas Debates & The McCain v. Obama Debates

1. My group members and I had to continue with the topics from the Galesburg debates, further comments on the Dred Scott case, and slavery in the territories. Our main focus was the slavery views on both sides. We included quotes from both candidates and their particular personal views on slavery. From This Article Lincoln states his view quite clearly, he says, “I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters of jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, not to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which will ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality...” Douglas questions Lincoln's statement about the superiority of whites over blacks. He made the point of asking, what the point of a Declaration of Independence was, if men like him are just going to keep twisting the words to what he wants them to sound like.

2.Regarding the Presidential and Vice Presidential 2008 debates, I think that the candidates are very repetitive on their views. I haven't seen any new idea either of them have brought up. My overall feeling about it is, "I'll see what happens once one of them gets in office." I mean to me their being honest and quite clear, I just don't see anything really taking place until one of them is president of the United States. If I were to compare them to the Lincoln-Douglas debates I think that a big difference is definitely the time. These days the time is so much shorter than the hour and a half Lincoln and Douglas had. I really don't think that Obama and McCain could do as well with 90 minutes of talking without repeating their sentences at least double what they already do. On the other hand, if Lincoln and Douglas had to speak for only 2 minutes, they would look at us as less intelligent because our focus is not on them speaking as much as it is who's winning the election. So both ways I think would be difficult for both sides.

Sexism Then and Now

Cleaning...like always.

Sexism is the belief that one sex is inferior to the other. It had quite an effect on the people in the time the civil war took place -particularly women. During the Civil War, which lasted from 1861-1865, women had more responsibilities after their husbands went to war. They did the normal cooking, cleaning, and sewing, but on top of that, they also had to defend their homes from enemy troops that were in town. What this meant was that they were basically taking on both roles of the man and woman. Although they weren't necessarily shunned as people, woman were looked down upon because of their sex.


Even though womens' rights weren't yet established, there were still a couple of those who weren't afraid to stand up for their beliefs. One woman who sparked ideas about women standing up for themselves was Sojourner Truth. In her book “ Ain't I A Woman,” she says, “Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman?” She's simply making the point that it doesn't matter what it is we do as people, we're all equal no matter what. A few of the disadvantages women had were not being allowed to vote, married women had no property rights, husbands had legal power to imprison their wives or beat them, and their self-confidence and self -respect was robbed from them and were made dependent on men.


In today's society, sexism seems more demeaning than it was back during the Civil War. Women are like toys these days. They're used to advertise products in various mens' magazines. Music videos are constantly being made “better” through the exposure of women's body parts and video games are displaying inappropriate images of women that unfortunately make young boys think that it's alright to think of women as less important than men. Even though women actually have higher more rewarding positions in the work force than they did back in the 19th century, there seems to be a lower level of respect for them today.



For example, a girl at this Roman Catholic high school in Alabama who was pregnant was forbidden to go to her own graduation ceremony and was told to no longer attend the school for “safety reasons.” Not only that, her name wasn't even put on the graduation program. So, instead of receiving her diploma in the traditional way of walking up to the teacher and getting it in front of everyone, her counselor decided to bring it to her house. But that's not all, the father of her baby, who was also a senior, was allowed to be in the graduation ceremony. There's sexism everywhere, sometimes it's more subtle than other times but it is definitely an apparent issue in this economy of ours.

Sources:


The Raw Story, Dara Parvis



Video Game Curse, Mark Hurst, Tarrytown, N.Y., June 23, 1997


Sojourner Truth Quote, Sojourner Truth (1797-1883): Ain't I A Woman?Delivered 1851Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio