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.

Humanities This Year

I believe the most important "thing" I have learned this year would have to be how the colonies seperated from Great Britain and how John Adams contributed to the seperation.I never really learned about how the colonies seperated from Great Britain. The trial that took place after the soldiers shot into the mob it set a foundation for he seperation and John Adams led the trial. The socratic seminar also really helped me understand the importance of the case and why John Adams thought it was his best work.

The work I am most proud of this year would have to be the Newspaper project. I never learned about the Lincoln-Douglas debates to this extent and writing the article about the Alton debate really helped me with writing overall. This project was a difficult project t get done, but my group worked hard and we finished on time. I also think made a large contribution to the finished product, such as how the layout looked and I also helped fill in blank space on the Newspaper. For example I said we should have four columns and I made an extra article about a gun that was coming out at the time of he debates.

If we had more time to work on the Newspaper I think they would have come out alot better. We had some typo's and allignment issues that we could have revised. In the future I will reread the whole article and edit mistakes/typo's. There was also no one in the group familiar with the program we were using so we had to get tech support alot of the time. During this project I learned alot about ledes, the teacher gave us specific directioins on how a lede shoud look and what it should include. The teacher also showedt us captions, pull quotes, by lines etc.. and other things we might find on a Newspaper that we should include in our project.

08 Presidential Debates Review

I read an article that graded each Obama and McCain on their performance in the first debate. It saidthat Obama won in every aspect. I agreed with the article and also came to a conclusion that Obgama won, after watching the debate online. In this debate Obama and McCain get their first chance to speak directly to the public and tell some of their policies.

Both Palin and Biden made mistakes in the Vice Presidential Debate, in class we discussed that Palin, not surprisingly, beat around the bush and never directly answered a question. Biden also made his share of mistakes, but in my opinion won without ease. In the vice Presidential Debate each nominee gets a chance to give support to their partner and also give some of their own polocies.

In the second Presidential Debate McCain took an approach to attack Obama and point out things Obama either did wrong or mistakes he has made in the past. Obama took it well, and ended up winning the debate constantly correcting McCain and overall doing a good job. In this debate they both had another chance to speak directly to the public, maybe correct some mistakes they may have made in the last debate, and tell some more of their policies.

This was one of my favorite debates because of how McCain got emotional near the end of the debate, it might of been a move of desperation, but in my opinion it wasn't very professional and I don't know what he expected to get out of it. Obama clearly won in my eyes, he stayed professional the whole debate. This was their last chance to talk directly to the public and give their opinions on some major topics.