Wednesday, September 11, 2013
"Why I carry a Gun" by Cindy Huang
The author of this article Cindy Huang from PBS Newshour, tries to provide arguments over the gun rights debate from the people who support having guns, whose lives rely much on guns. She interviewed 10 American from different States with different genders and ages, various occupations. Most of these interviews believe that guns are necessary for self-protection, either for normal daily lives or jobs. Some who work for jobs with higher danger level, like private investigator and security guard, believe gun could ensure their own safety. And some who live far away believe gun could be helpful when no one could help them in time. Base on the interviews with these people, I believe their point of argument is that firearm ownership should be a right as guns are mainly used for protection purpose by 'honest, law-abiding' citizens. Gun as a type of weapon, does not represent goodness or evilness itself. But only remain as a tool for either good citizens or criminals. The goodness or badness should be within a person's heart, not the gun itself.
Americans Experiencing Slightly Different Kind Of Numbness Today
The news I
read is Americans Experiencing Slightly
Different Kind of Numbness Today published on the Onion. In this news, the
author says, during the past 12 years of history, there is a sense of spiritual
numbness which is a unique American local feeling of emptiness and a helpless inability
spreads among Americans.
According to
the reporters, A resident in Ohio describes the feeling of his daily routine as
emotional paralysis which is a profoundly longing kind of numb, like a pained
voice that wants to scream but can’t. His words echo the sentiments of all
other Americans. The author wrote in the news that Americans use words like “hangs
in the background”, “miserable”, ”horror”, “alone and shattered”, “unmollified”
and “shitty” to express how they feel
about their daily life. Until now, Americans still stay in a unique variety of
emotional numbness, but at least, it is changing things up a little.
Sources: US weapons stolen in Libya raids, fueling Special Forces pull-out
I read an article which entitled “Sources: US weapons stolen in Libya raids, fueling Special Forces pull-out” on Fox news.com. This news argued that the loss of weapons that used by U.S. Special Forces contributes to the decision of pulling Special Forces out.
The news argues this from the importance of the weapons, the time, the governors consideration and the tasks of the team. First the news uses one source to point out the importance of the stolen equipment, which said the weapons could help U.S win wars and the enemy didn’t have them. As for time, the raids happened a few weeks before the team leave the country. Another source which was said having “direct knowledge of the events” gives the support that State Department was afraid of things going wrong more. Also, the loss were guns which were sensitive items and may cause terrify consequences, so State Department did not want to be responsible for that. Therefore, people wanted the team moved out of the country. Although the Pentagon officials did not admit the team members were tasked to track the Benghazi suspects, the source of Fox news still provided evidences that the training mission was another reason for the Special Forces pull-out.
Why I Carry A Gun –PBS NewsHour Article
The author of this article, Cindy Huang, approaches the gun
control debate by interviewing 10 people who currently carry a gun to gain
their perspective on why guns are a part of their lives. The interviews included
a mix of men and women of various ages and occupations including a 67 yr old female
Avacado Farmer who owns a gun to protect her against thieves (both people &
animals around her produce), to a 41 yr old male Gunsmith who believes there is
a certain “beauty of the weapons” which is becoming a lost art.
The author begins the
article by indicating PBS NewsHour is looking at the gun debate from ALL angles
but based on the types of people they interviewed (Sheriff, Hunter, Private Investigator, etc), I believe their argument in
this article is that gun ownership is a right and a necessity in many American’s lives as guns are used as a form of protection,
something to be respected and are not only used by criminals but law abiding
citizens. It probably would have been difficult for them to find criminals using guns for unethical/illegal means, willing to come forward and explain their use...but would have brought a full view of all gun owners.
Matt Stemper “Do we have any clue how to fight terrorism?”
In the article “Do
we have any clue how to fight terrorism?” the author Kevin Drum states that
there really have not been many articles that has anything talking about
counterterrorism. The author says that it is ridiculous that we only have seven
good articles to consider on this topic, and they all state that the United
States counterterrorism has not progressed over the years, which is terribly
negative. Although he does state that there could be a lot of classified
studies done by the government that could possibly prove those seven articles
wrong. Kevin Drum makes his final argument against the government when he
compares the number of respectable articles on counterterrorism to the number
of articles on LOLCats. He writes very negatively about the population, declaring
that people should be far more worried about topics such as counter terrorism,
than topics such as LOLcats and other Internet humor items.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/09/terrorism-fighting-studies
The Rich Just Keep Pulling Away From the Rest of Us
I read an article about the gap of income between
the rich and the poor from Mother Jones.
It was entitled “The Rich Just Keep Pulling Away From the Rest of Us”. It
states that super rich people are doing very well recently.
New income inequality figures show that incomes of the top 1% have grown by 31
percent, while the incomes of the
other 99% have been flat. Even though apologists for the rich may say that the
net income of the rich has decreased more seriously than that of the non-rich,
we have to admit that the rich is always better than the rest. Firstly, it is
because of the large income base of the rich. Suppose a millionaire, who lost
16.3 percent on his income. He was still better than the one who made 15 bucks
an hour and lost 11.2 percent of income. Secondly, the economic expansions are
always happen on the rich. Even though they may suffer succession, the rich
still gain from expansion. As a result, their net gains are always higher than
the rest of us. Economic cycles and statistics from historical era also have also
shown that the rich have always pulled ahead.
Obama's Blurry Red Line
The FactCheck.org piece details the ambiguous promise by Barack Obama on what would instigate United States involvement in the Syrian conflict. FactCheck.org claims that the President said in August of last year that the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict would be the red line that warranted military intervention in the Syrian conflict. As of right now, chemical weapons were used in Syria and Obama has yet to order military intervention. The argument used by the author was that this displayed a blurry red line when it came to Obama's decision to intervene in Syria. Obama's defense was that the red line of chemical weapons was instead set by the international community as opposed to by himself. The fact the Obama promised military intervention when chemical weapons were used, and has yet to intervene in Syria shows ambiguous standards for what warrants military intervention in Syria.
On Syria Debate, Congress Shifts From Frenzied to Frozen
This article “On Syria Debate, Congress
Shifts from Frenzied to Frozen” is a latest political news, which announces that
last night, president Obama delayed the vote on using military force on Syria
and it seemed like congress cooled down from frantic. The vote and meeting on Syria
was canceled and instead lawmakers mourned for the 9.11 attack 12 years ago and
moved to the budget, healthcare and some other topics. Things changed a lot
since last week. Last week, to gain support for bombing Syria, every staff in
White House tried to brief congressional Democrats and Republicans and to
persuade the skeptical lawmakers to agree with the military force in Syria. Also,
American Israel Public Affairs Committee sent 300 people to do the lobbying
work. But it turned out to be that didn’t work even after an all-hands-on deck
effort on Monday. For now, Congress would likely to see the debatable and
divisive vote put off.
Joey King
Blog Entry 1
John Kerry Costs US Defense Industry 400 Billion
After learning that Syria could possibly remove their stockpile of chemical weapons from the country, John Kerry decided to tell the public that he was going to avoid military strikes. This caused an uproar from the Defense Industry workers who were prepared to sell missiles and other defensive objects such as unmanned drones.
The defense industry believes that if his views don't work out, he should be held responsible for all the money that they lost. 400 Billion is quite the lucrative conflict, so there is reason for the anger displayed by workers across the country.
The author of the article really attacked John Kerry by bringing in as many educated opinions as possible that sided against Kerry's views. Many of those who gave quotes were workers who were displeased by Kerry's actions. The Author argues that this was a money making opportunity that was lost by a politician speaking out of line.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/john-kerry-costs-us-defense-industry-400-billion,33815/
Alan Grayson (Politifact Health Insurance)
My article was strictly on the democratic idea of health insurance. It's coming from the mouth of a U.S. representative and Florida democrat Alan Grayson. The article was a bit confusing sometimes because it used tons of statistics but basically the message he was trying to get across was by supporting the democratic Affordable Care Act that the republicans are trying to destroy, you can save as many as 45,000 lives a year. The number of people who die each year from simple curable diseases because they can't afford to see a physician, surpasses the number of people each year who die from terminal kidney disease. Many scholars attacked his speech saying that more factors than insurance can attack a low income person's mortality, but Grayson's opinion and message was firm.
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