Neptune's Navy

Paul Watson was born on December 2, 1950 in the North shore of Lake Ontario. He is known for his courage, sometimes considered recklessness, and passion towards animals. All his life he grew up protecting animals, when he was a young boy Paul had shot a kid with a BB gun just before he was about to kill a bird. He sometimes even considered himself "as a fearless and uncompromising defender of animals."

In his attempt to defend animals such as whales or seals he has created Neptune's Navy. He likes to call his crusade Operation Asshole because the process involves ramming one vessel into another. This is just one step to his sometimes awkward procedures.

Moments before ramming a vessel, Watson will radio its captain and say something that is very official, for example: "Please remove yourselves from these waters. You are in violation of international conservation regulations." This sometimes isn't very affective so he will move on to more bizarre tactics such as launching hundreds of points of butter onto the other ship, or using water cannons to launch light bulbs full of paint.

At times he is not successful, mainly because he is willing to risk lives to protect the whales. One incident had led to Watson arresting a whaling vessel on the high seas, but he was constrained by the fact that he had no real authority to do so. He then called officials in New Zealand and Australia and requested that a naval vessel take the Japanese ship into custody. Both countries refused. Australia's environment minister, Malcolm Turnbull, publicly denounced the tactics that the Sea Shepherd crew had used and he had said at one point, "Threatening to put lives at risk or vessels at risk, is completely unacceptable, they must act safely and peacefully. They are not advancing the anti-whaling cause they espouse by threatening lives in this way." He eventually gave the boat free passage.

So at times he may not become successful, but I believe he is becoming a great threat to whalers and may be diminishing the amount of people hunting whales, seals and other animals.

He's Not Black

I think Marie Arana means we have progressed as far as electing a non white president, but we still insist in calling African Americans black. She even says, "We are racially sophisticated enough to elect a non-white president, and we are so racially backward that we insist on calling him black. Progress has outpaced vocabulary." I agree with her completely, I feel it's time for the language to move on and for us to catch up with our progress vocabulary wise.

We have progressed somewhat vocabulary wise, such as we don't call an African American a negro, calling African Americans black in my opinion is not nearly as bad. How racially sophisticated are we anyway? Well I think we have come along way, we have abolished slavery, African Americans have gotten the same rights as anyone else and everyone is considered an equal.

There are many things Marie Arana means when she says we're racially backward. I think she may be talking about how we consider someone to be black or white or Hispanic etc... If someone has lighter skin we consider them white and if someone has dark skin we consider them black. Marie Arana gave an example as follows:"I understand everything you say. I too am a child of two cultures. My mother is German, my father African American. I was born in Germany, speak German and call myself a German-American. But look at me. What would you say I am?" She was referring to her skin, which was light black; her hair, lush and curly; and her eyes, a shining onyx. "I am fifty percent German. But no one who sees me believes it."

That in my opinion is racially backward and we should not be classifying people by their skin color.

Arana writes: "Isn't it time for the language to move on?" How do you feel about this? Why?

Thanksgiving

Part one...

I'm most thankful for my family and friends.

Part two...

I will have a written rough draft to my final product and get all the pictures I'm going to use somewhere where I can access them easily.

H2O Project Progress

I've discovered that cleaning the beach isn't the main problem, its keeping it clean. A group of people can get together and clean up the trash, but it will just get dirty again. That's why we need to follow the 10-step program by Clean Beaches Plan and manage our beaches correctly.

Sometimes when I bring up my project people ask who cares if there is wildlife at the beach, this surprises me because they don't understand that this won't only affect animals, it will affect people and the health of the beach.

The next step in my project will be rewriting my rough draft and get ready for the second critique. I would also like to try and get an interview with a wildlife biologist and get some more pictures.

H2O Product Models

Here is a link to an article that is similar to one I may do.

• It gives a list of things people can do to keep beaches clean, similar to my list.
• Also gives background information similar to the background information I'm giving about dog beach.
• They also describe how it can effect people.

Here is another link to a blog I found.

• I'm using this blog as a model because it includes many pictures.
• It doesn't only include pictures of clean beatches, but shows dirty beaches as well.
• This blog also has a list of ideas to keep the beaches clean.

I can integrate all these ideas into my H2O project and use pictures, and write a detailed article that includes the list of ideas to keep the beaches clean.

Blog #19

In An Eternal Revolution, Orlando Patterson writes about the "struggle of black Americans to be incorporated in the public sphere." He also stated that women and the young have been somewhat excluded and are now more involved. Some other groups he could have mentioned was Native Americans, Hispanics, or Asians. According to Chair Rodriguez a record number of Americans participated in the 08 election.

The process of including one specific group of people into the overall voting population in America is as follows:

• Find the percentage of the overall population of the specific group.
• Find if the majority is Democrat or Republican.
• Then find the recent or past voting records for the majority of the group.

All these groups were excluded in political decisions just 100-200 years ago. Now a large portion of voters are included in these groups and we have the first black president. I agree with an article I read about how it swept away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as its first black chief executive.

H2O Research Plan

a) All resources Needed
-Visit to PB point
-Camera
-Over the phone interview wildlife biologist/beach goers

b)All People Needed
-Craig Reiser
-Classmates to look over article
-Residents that live around PB point

c)Detailed Schedule
November:
7-Discuss my project with my teacher, and create plan for next two weeks.
8-Create interview questions and Schedule interview with Craig Reiser.
9-12-Visit PB point and take pictures.
13-17-Create questions for beach goers.
18-21-Begin rough draft to article.
22-30-Thanksgiving break/weekend.

December:
1-5-Get article critiqued and begin final draft.
6-11-Complete final product
12-H2O project Due

Election Reflection

Part 1:
I feel that the results of the election were expected to turn out as they did. I am personally glad that Obama won and felt that he deserved to win. Over the next few years it would be great if we can start pulling our troops out of Iraq and start fixing our economy I am also hoping our county can start relying on alternate energy sources. Some people ma be disappointed with how some of the props may have turned out. I'm concerned that some of the props might not help our community the way we would like them to.

Part 2:
My knowledge on civic knowledge has increased exponentially since the beginning of the year. Blogging has kept me up to date and helps me relate things we talk about in clas such as the social contract to current events such as the presidential debates.

I think we should have more class discussion on specific topics. Blogs that concentrate on a specific topic can sometimes make it easier to learn about the topic. When I'm in a political discussion outside of school I feae that I am more educated on the matter. my knowledge on politics also effects my opinion somewhat.

H2O Project Research Ideas

1.Will Global Warming have an effect on the amount of bacteria/Ph levels at any San Diego beach? If so, will it be a significant difference?

For this research idea plan on also concentrating on how the bacteria/PH levels will effect animals in the area and determine if it will be safe for people to go into the water at all.

Global warming will not only change sea levels, weather, agriculture, challenged resources, species extinction, it could prevent surfers and families to play in the water because bacteria/PH levels will continue to rise. Global warming and San Diego says global warming will take effect much faster than has been predicted. "Bacterial levels can increase significantly in ocean and bay waters..." according to Beach and Bay.

Report Warns of Coastal Flooding and Rising Sea Levels in California states, "sea level is expected to rise an additional 22 to 35 inches by the end of the century" and this would inundate coastal areas with salt water, accelerate coastal erosion, threaten vital levees and inland water systems and disrupt wetlands and natural habitats.

2.Is there any other way to clean local beaches and restore the wildlife without having to block off the beach as they did at dog beach?

For this research idea I plan to give a brief summary of how dog beach was closed off for about 2 years and how it helped restore the wildlife in the area and clean up the near by wetlands.

Clean Beaches Plan gives a list of activities and a description of each and how long each one should take. The plan will lead to healthier beaches and better beach management.

For this idea I am looking for a current beach that is closed off or one that has endangered wildlife in the area and conjure an idea based on my research that will restore the wildlife and make it healthier.

ACORN and Voter Suppression

ACORN is a community activist group that operates nationwide and has recently been accused of massive voter fraud by the McCain campaign. According to factcheck, Obama has “long and deep” ties to the group. In the past few weeks, the McCain campaign has accused the group of perpetrating voter fraud by intentionally submitting invalid registration forms. It wouldn't matter anyway, ACORN is not aloud to throw out registration forms even if they are suspected to be fraud. If there is suspicions that a form is fake then, according to factcheck, ACORN says that it first flags all suspicious registrations. Investigator Hayes followed up, confirmed that many registrations were faked, and found a former ACORN worker who confessed to faking most of her forms. ACORN is not just sittng by and letting their employees get away with this, a total of 33 employees have been fired for "suspicious" voter registration activities. Also according to factcheck, ACORN says that such raids are part of "a systematic partisan agenda of voter suppression,"

Even though any attempt of fraud will have no affect of the presidential race the Obama campaign effectively pushing back against any GOP-inspired shenanigans. It is also said in Stop GOP Vote Suppression in 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. That is just one example of voter suppression, in UPDATED: Voter Suppression Growing Nationwide there is a portion of the article that talks about an incident where a college student was looking foward to voting in her first presidential election. Just two weeks before the article was written she got a letter from local election officials, it stated: "This office has received notification from the state of Georgia indicating that you are not a citizen of the United States and therefore, not eligible to vote." She was one of more than 50,000 registered Georgia voters who have been "flagged" because of a computer mismatch in their personal identification information.

Voter suppression is becoming a serious problem and is a major scandal in my opinion. While on the other hand ACORN is not a very big scandal and can be taken care of easily. For example Freddie Johnson has registered to vote 42 times in Cuyahoga County since the first of the year. Most, if not all, of his sign-ups were solicited by canvassers for ACORN, but this cannot be controlled by ACORN, they have to turn in all registrtion forms by law, and ACORN is firing suspicous employees.