October 14th, 2012, The Vice Presidential Debates

I really really really like Joe Biden. Throughout the debate, you could tell that he was pretty composed, even when he laughed out loud at the governor. My favorite part of the debate was when they talked about religion. I think this is a key difference between the Democrats and Republicans. Although both people said that religion is a key part of their lives, (Biden even said it made him who we was,) one candidate said what they believed and said they were going to spread it to everyone, while the other said that no matter what he believed, he knew that it was not his job to impose on others choices. As Biden said that he knew it wasn’t his job, my mind was further made up. He is open minded, a characteristic pretty refreshing in a Catholic man. He understands that it isn’t his job to make personal decisions for people, especially women. Women are not a political issue, and based on that alone, I would vote for Obama and Biden. 

Throughout the whole debate, Ryan consistently went overtime, and although you could tell that Biden was annoyed, he held his composer, and played it off as a joke more times than one. “He gets forty seconds, I get fifteen, I guess thats ok...” The mediator laughed it off with Biden, even when Ryan was clearly getting stressed about it. People say that Biden won, and I agree. The back and forth was incredible, and although it wasn’t all offensive, the two candidates went pretty hard against each other, and I was impressed with both. This debate was better than the presidential one, and I got an even better idea of the policies of both the plans, which I hadn’t gotten before. 

Ryan is a little arrogant. It was clear that he really believed he was saying, even if it was wrong, and his arrogance came through when he told lies and didn’t stay consistent, even though he believed he was doing a fantastic job. I remember his closing statement better than Biden’s, mostly because it sounded like a speech, all empty rhetoric and persuasive language, not based in fact. I don’t like his eyes, I feel like they’re always lying to me. But whatever, good job candidates, Obama 2012!

September 10, 2012, The Michelle Speech

       I am speechless. Michelle Obama blew me away with her rhetoric. When she came onstage and everyone went crazy, I felt more patriotic than I have in years. She talked about the importance of voting in colorado, the way that we need to look at our future as a country, and how me, my generation, is going to adopt whatever we turn the country into (weather we elect Obama or not.) Seeing such a strong woman stand in front of us and say that she's in love with her husband and why, and then tell us about healthcare in the same speech, absolutely changed my life. I am inspired. When I saw her live, it made it real. It made me realize that the election isn’t just some big thing that the news covers, and it made me realize that Michelle and Barack are not just characters who speak well in public, they’re real people. They are a family, presidential or not. Realizing this made the election hit that much closer to home, and just encouraged me to vote Democratic even more. 

       Her rhetoric, empty or not, was beautiful. Through talk about growing up, her husbands childhood, and saying the this is the mots beautiful part of Colorado, she won our hearts. I cried when she talked about our presidents character, and I couldn't help but tear up when she mentioned being able to love whoever you want to love, and choose what's right for your body, (if you're a woman.) Mentioning how cutting Big Bird won't help our economy was also a plus. She is personable when she speaks, she’s easy to connect to. She says things you can relate to, and it just reminds you that she is a real person. Her charisma, class, and poise make her such a role model, while she still seems so approachable. 

      Past my experience of watching her speak and then shaking her hand, I got to be press. Hanging on my wall right now is a badge that says "White House Press Pool" and my name. Being press was a mind opening experience, I got to stand on a riser with cameras and news and writers and see the action from a whole new perspective, all because of journalism. This night not only inspired me, but it changed my life.

October 9th, 2012, Obamacare: Is It The Governments Job To Fix Health Care?

       If the government doesn’t do it, who will? Having a federal government as we do allows us to have the health care we need, so yes, I do believe that it’s the governments job. Right now, we are working towards something that I believe will work, and as everyone in the country gets health care, the generally living quality of everyone in the country can go up, which is the point of the government anyway, right? 

I agree with Obamacare. I’m a middle class citizen, I know what its like to be worried about money, my family has been there, I’ve lived without health insurance. Through Obamacare, I’ll always have health care and I won’t be buried by costs that I can’t pay. Also with Obamacare, I’ll be on my parents plan until I’m 26, so when I’m struggling to pay my medschool bills, I won’t have something else to worry about.

October 3rd, 2012, The 1st Debate

First of all, the fact that women's health wasn’t even mentioned in the debate about demographic issues. I am very democratic, and I would have liked to laugh at Mitt’s ideas about MY body.

That being said, the debates were surprising. I am an Obama supporter, but I think Mitt won that debate. He is a master debater. He answered questions smoothly, looked back and forth from Obama to the mediator to the camera, and when he was stumped, he didn’t show it. There were a few points when I couldn’t help but chuckle, just because I don’t agree with his ideas, but I was impressed with his rhetoric. He didn’t bog the debate down with personal information, but he put himself into it enough that I could tell he really believed what he was saying. Even if he was wrong. Which he was. Personal bias aside, Obama did well too. Although he couldn’t seem to get his point across in the allotted time slot, he was still pretty clear about his ideas, plans, and personal beliefs. I liked that he announced his anniversary, this personal stuff is what makes him human to us. I’m still voting for him, if not just for Mitt Romneys small face.

What I didn’t like about the debates what exactly that, they were debates. The presidents get up there, spew some empty rhetoric around the room, mention a couple statistics, and then rebuttal. Its been that way for awhile now. Although they both displayed more detailed plans, I still got lost in the fact that most of the time, they were just replying to the other’s ideas, and saying the other candidate was wrong. Its just what happens. I guess I just wish I could have heard more of the ideas Im passionate about, women's health being one of them. All in all, great job candidates, Obama 2012!

October 1st, 2012, The Democratic Issues

Education is the key to the future of this country. The more people in this country who are educated, and educated well, means that our countries success will go up. I am very passionate about the fact that at school you learn more than just academics, but you learn how to be productive, professional, social, and it teaches you balance. Because of Obamas plans for education, the 7.4 million people in the country who have education loans won’t double. More children will be allowed to be in head start programs at younger ages, and under the Romney Ryan plan, 200,000 more children would be cut from head-start programs. Also, Mitt would veto the DREAM act, an act that allows young immigrants to get a good education, no matter what. Education under the Mitt and Paul plans, education would not be a priority for our country anymore, and our country would fall even more than it has. Cutting funding for the educational programs in the United States is not an answer, no matter what political party you belong to. 

September 29th, 2012, Videos of The First Amendment

I did not like these videos. I am amazed that videos of this quality won first, second, and third place. Having a little kid say he likes jazz does not actually make for a very good video. What made these bad is basically the quality. To make a video look good, you need to have a good camera, good sound equipment, and you need to know how to use your editing program, is in, don’t use all the cheesy effects just because you can. 

My video will be a good one. I have a lot of experience with iMovie and I know how to make a professional video. My video will be a compilation of sorts, where we have Captain America saving our first amendments. Between religion, expression, and speech, Ryan will save three different things. We plan to punch Izzy in the face, cover me with mud, and light Jonathan on fire.

September 26th, 2012, Hazelwood vs Kuhlmeier

In 1988, a principle censored a student newspaper and deleted two articles, one about pregnancy and one about divorce. He didn’t give students a chance to fix the articles, just deleted them. When he students heard, they took it to court, saying that it was impending on their rights to free speech. The court decided 5 to 3 that the principle had the right or censor he newspaper, because it was a “private forum.” The reason they called it a private forum was that it was not a space for any student to write, just the ones in the journalism class. The principal has all the rights he wants to censor the paper.

This directly relates to me because I am on the school newspaper. I am a news editor, a news a reporter, and he copy editor. Most of what I do is news, so its easy to keep my bias’s out of the writing. However, when I write or edit features, I have a hard time keeping my beliefs out of it. Even in a recent news article I wrote, an important quote had profanity in it, and I had to deiced to censor the direct quote or not. I asked my teacher, and she said that under our policy and mission statements, I couldn’t say the word fa***t in the newspaper, even if it was a quote. 

I do think that this is a fair verdict for the case. The school is probably funding the paper, and so they get to decide what they publish and what they don’t. Through this decision, the principle probably saved a lot of controversy and troubles for the school, even if they did end up going to court...