ACORN and Voting Suppression

October 6, 2008, 3:58 pm
The Election Dirty Tricks Have Begun
By The Editorial Board

ACORN is a non profit organization which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which is now under investigation by state and federal authorities . The problem with this activist group is that the republican party is accusing them for registration fraud like setting up fake ballots which fake people like Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck. Its not entirely ACORN's fault like they are making it seem like. ACORN is only allowed to give their ballots to the voting representatives and its up them to then catch all the voting frauds that come through. It illegal for ACORN to throw out or not accept all the ballots that are given to them even if they are fake or not, the only thing they can do is let the voting representatives know that a stack of ballots looks suspicious and then have them take it over from there.

Voting Suppression is when people try to restrict your ability to vote. They may do this by sending false letters or phone calls to your house. The Philadelphia Daily reported "an anonymous flier has shown up in African-American neighborhoods in North and West Philadelphia saying (falsely, of course) that voters who face outstanding arrest warrants or have unpaid traffic tickets could be arrested if they go to the polls." These people think that if they give out false information to people it will restrict them from voting. Sadly, alot of people do fall for this and end up not voting.

I think the real problem is the voting suppression. ACORN doesn't have a choice to not except fraud ballots but people get away with voting suppression all the time. Voting suppression is more of the scandal out of the two too. Alot of the media (and John McCain) makes a big deal out of ACORN when its only a little problem and not entirely their fault.



Acorn Fights Back
The Board
The Acorn Story
The Real Issue
FOX NEWS

Comparing our Debates

Our debates are compared into historical context by the two candidates wanting to make change in society and by how debates were ran. Comparing our 2008 presidential debates to back then's Lincoln Douglas debates, they were the same and different in many ways. Douglas would say "whatever you want, gentlemen, that's what I'm here for". This sounds relatively similar to something i would hear come out of John McCain's mouth. By convincing the audiences for change or "what ever they would like" would catch the eye of most voters. Back then debates were also ran differently. During the Lincoln Douglas debates they were given over an hour for one topic unlike our 90 seconds we have today. I couldn't imagine having a 3 hour presidential debate.

Debate #3 Reflection

“I think everybody understands at this point that we are experiencing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. And the financial rescue plan that Senator McCain and I supported is an important first step. And I pushed for some core principles: making sure that taxpayer can get their money back if they're putting money up. Making sure that CEOs are not enriching themselves through this process.“ –Barrack Obama

I think this part in the transcript describes our discussions about our financial crisis we are in on Wall Street. In class one of our assignments we had to write about in our blog was advice to the federal government for Wall Street. I had said that the government should give them loans and then when they get it back together and things are back to normal, they can pay it back. That’s what sort of took place with the bail out plan.

The media is all about the polls, who’s winning, and little comments from the candidates. In this article I read, it talks about how John McCain says in the debate number 3 “I love being the underdog”. He also said according to CNN, “You know, every time that I've gotten ahead, somehow I've messed it up." This goes to show that the media picks out the littlest things either one of the candidates says so they can try and draw the line between who’s winning, and truly wants it, and who doesn’t.

The World Wide Web

I think that Internet effects democracy by putting many different opinions out there for people to see. The Internet always doesn't say things that are true which differs peoples opinions for example what should take place in the government. Like today's election, there are like 50000 articles and blog entry's that discuss what is going on between the two candidates, picking sides for each. Over all the Internet is like a big information center where if you want to find something out just search for it and you'll find it. Most all people access Internet so i think that it would have something to do with basing peoples opinions from what they perceive online.

Reflection Of Newspaper

Some things I liked about contributing to the group was with finding the picture with the caption, helping revising headlines, and trying to give ideas for the newspaper. I had found a picture that no one else really had that portrayed the articles really well. No one else really seemed to be finding pictures with captions so I took on the job of doing so. I also liked how I helped the group revise their headlines when we needed to put an “action verb” into it. My other group members were having trouble so I helped them find new ways to reword their headlines and sub headlines to add the action verb into it. I thought our headlines turned out pretty nice and were eye catching for the reader to read.

I contributed to the group by giving ideas for revising our final product. Also like I said before I helped the group with revising the headlines and finding the pictures with captions. If we were to do this project again I would like for maybe my group members to corporate and for me not be ignored all the time. I truly believe our final product could have been better if our group wasn’t so resistant to revision, let alone everything else I had to say. It’s unfortunate to see that this turned out this way but it’s only a learning experience that we can only improve upon.

I honestly don’t think we used our resources very well. We could have done a lot more to our final product by like I said by revising, maybe printing proofs and getting critiques and revising, and putting some structure in the layout. I also think by having more people in the group learn how to design the newspaper might be a little more helpful then just relying on one person to make everything. It seemed like our group just used the resources that were handed to us but didn’t go out of our way to exceed to our fullest. Next time I think we should come up with a plan for what to get done everyday and be a little bit more organized all together.

Photography at its Finest

Rule of Thirds

This picture has a good rule of thirds because the picture is overall proportional and it forces you to look over the entire photograph.

— Penny Adams, Photo Editor on Monday, September 17, 2007


Depth of Field

This picture portrays a great depth of field because the main focus point is the point that has the most focus. The rest of the picture is blurred so it forces you to look at what is more focused.

Damien Franco on Monday, June 16th 2008




Eyes, Color Fill the Frame

This is a good example of filling the frame because the head shot takes up the whole picture. Also the eyes are a little off to the left and a pale shade of blue making it so when you first look at the picture your eyes go there.

Stephanie colvard ~ college student / Beauty contestant




Interesting Use of Light

I think this photography has an interesting use of light because the shadows casting through the fence makes sort of a cool effect on the sidewalk.

Jocelyn K. Arizona, USA






Eye Level

I thought this was an good use of eye level because the perspective is from where a human would be making it easier to look at.

-MudRanch Photography


Macro Photography

This picture has a great use of Macro photography because its really focused and is high quality. You can almost see every detail which makes it more realistic.

-Graham Owen


FreeBee

I like this picture because it seems to have a cool structured look to it. I also like how all the colors conjoin together which makes it really eye catching.

Debates Past and Present

Lincoln Douglas Debate #7


My Licoln Douglous presidential debate was the 7th one in Alton Illinosis. My topic was on equality of black and whites. Douglas taking the stand argued that each state should determine whether individuals could legally own slaves within its jurisdiction.

“Divided into free and slave states as our fathers made it- each state having the right to prohibit, abolish or sustain slavery as it pleases."Douglas called the states right to determine its own laws “equality among all the states” the crowds eyed Douglas as his reasoning with regard to slavery was straight forward.

Lincolns argued slavery as “immoral” regardless of how many people supported it. The constitution was on his side supporting that “ all men were created equally” realizing that people were to afraid to speak out Lincoln tried to connect to the people during the debate. This debate really opened peoples mind into the two opposing sides of slavery.

2008 Presidential Debate

I think that overall Obama won the debates because he was confident and backed up everything with evidence. It looked at though he was comfortable to take on any question or attack that was thrown to him and that’s what our country needs.

John McCain looked nervous alot at some points unlike Barrack Obama who answered the questions confidently and knowingly. The second debate revealed between the two candidates who could take pressure from people asking questions and who seemed uneasy.

I truelly think John McCain is basically full of crap. After following these two candidates and listening to what they have to say, I don’t agree with John McCain. He seems like he would make the same mistakes Bush did. What we really need is change.

Connecting our Demographics

Clinton-Obama Quandary for Many Black Women

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
Published: October 14, 2007

In this article an African American women named Clara Vereen expresses her opinion about a black candidate running for president. “I’ve got enough black in me to want somebody black to be our president” she said. She also describes how she is concerned of Barrack Obama safely if he is elected for president. The article says how black women are a "crucial constituency" in South Carolina because half of the state’s democratic primary voters were black.

In my last blog i talk about how in a lot of the southern states most of the population is African American. Wouldn't you think that Barrack Obama has more of an advantage in these parts of the country? I also talked about how these statistics got to be that way. My opinion was that it was because of where they originated from.

Personally i think these southern states have somewhat to do with voting for Barrack Obama becuase of his race. It is said that Obama targeted alot of his campain in these areas for a reason. If most of the southern states have accoiation with Obama then would it make sense for the eastern states to go up for Mc Caine?

Scattering the States

Demographics Set and Stone?
Why Dont Americans' "Scatter the States"?


Why do states where certain races originate from make up a large percentage of that race? The American Fact Finder proves that most African Americans originate from the south (e.g. Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia), still live there today. This doesn’t mean that all African Americans live in the south east but that’s where in one of those singles states alone 26.3 to 55.4 % of them live. The same goes with the White race, 94 to 96% of people who live in Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, and West Virginia are white.

If after the civil war when all people had the right to live wherever they wanted why didn’t they want to move to a different part of the country? This makes me wonder why they chose to make this decision.I think this goes back to where races orignated from.

The statistics show that in the eastern states where most of the white people came from still have a large percentage in those states along with some random middle, eastern, and western states as well. The same goes with the Asians that originated more from the west and the African Americans coming from the south.

This entire pattern in demographics makes me wonder if over time the percentages will ever be broken up. It also interests me how the education system isn’t the same in all of the states. The south has one of the poorest education system compared to the east and west coast. In 2006 in almost all of the southern states, only 66% percent were people who were 25 years and over completed high school. That’s more then half of the entire state its self.

Sen. Eric Johnson is still trying to push school vouchers on the residents of Georgia. He states that vouchers "should be paying more attention to improving the public school system in Georgia instead of trying to put a Band-Aid on the problem." I wonder if in the future, future presidents will make a change in the education system through out the Untied States. Maybe we might see some of those percentages go down like all the rest. Overall the whole concept of where states are located and who orientated from there is a mystery that will only reveal itself over time.

-"United States - Race and Ethnicity - American FactFinder." American FactFinder. http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ACSSAFFPeople?_submenuId=people_10&_sse=on (accessed Oct. 2, 2008).
-Lakly, Donna Lee . "School vouchers: Plan does not address the deep problems with public education in Georgia ajc.com." Atlanta News, Sports, Atlanta Weather, Business News ajc.com. http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2008/09/29/laklyed.html (accessed Oct. 2, 2008).