Honors

Jacksonian Democracy

Jacksonian Democracy is very different compared to the Jeffersonian Democracy that came before it. The Jacksonian Democracy focused on the expansion of executive branch powers while the legislative branch was then stripped of there’s. One concept of the Jacksonian Democracy which in my opinion is a very good thing is how it allowed more equal rights not just for wealthy people or land owners but every white individual (Remember during this time black people didn’t have the same rights as whites). This was bases that lead to equality to all races in our country which now a days gives us a huge mix of culture which allows us to be different than any other country, were like one big melting pot as some people put it. There was a party who was against this type of democracy and that part was called the Whig Party probably more because if was the rival of the party Andrew Jackson was apart of which is the Democratic Party. One thing that this new era thought was a good idea was Westward Expansion or as they call it Manifest Destiny. Overall this expansion has been shaped our country and because of it we would not have such an expansive amount of resources and land to be used by the people as well as place for visit like California and Seattle. Overall I believe that the Jacksonian Democracy helped shape the ideas that we are now used to today such as equality and equal representation both in the senate and who we elect to become president. These are things we trust should be defended by our government and I think this style of democracy allowed that to happen.

Acorn or Voter Fraud Now THAT is the Question

Acorn A Company that is Trying to Help Get the Word Out

Acorn a company that is allowing people who have financial difficulties to bounce back and allows people to vote is now being attacked as a conspiracy and linkings to Voter Fraud are not just out of the question.

The Acorn Scandal and Voter Fraud have nothing to do with eachother. Sure there have been cases where Voter Fraud has occured but as many sources have shown it is a very small margin that is generally picked out by the vast number of people who look at the ballots. What it is allowing is for people who have a lower income to have their voices heard which has always been a problem here in America. Now a days the government revolves not around the citizens but the big corperations, which is exactly what the U.S. was not based on. When it comes to McCain talking about Acorn when there are bigger topics is just showing how he is trying to avoid the topic of economy like this CNN reporter wrote. "John McCain is talking about ACORN? Just as a top McCain adviser admitted that his candidate wouldn't campaign on the economy because it's a losing issue, so too it seems that the GOP has made a collective decision to abandon any real discussion of the issues in favor of distortion and distraction." I agree with this reporter and although I support McCain, I think he should focus on the bigger issues.

Overall the issue of voter fraud is really not applicable and just a way to escape from the current issues that actually need to be adressed like the economy the war and overall plans to help the government get back on its feet. These are the big issues not this voter fraud as another writer wrote, "After all, the odds of someone voting fraudulently are about the same as those of an American being struck and killed by lightning." These odds are very slim and the chances of it actually affecting the election is slim to none, so we need to focus more on the main topics not just scapegoats to help draw the publics eye.

To see a video by Acorn attacking voter supression just click here.
New York Times
StarTribune
CNN
Washington Times
Market Watch

Presidential Debate Reflection Number 3

1. "He has been watching ads of Senator McCain's. Let me tell you what I'm actually going to do. I think tax policy is a major difference between Senator McCain and myself. And we both want to cut taxes, the difference is who we want to cut taxes for." One thing we have talked about in class is how the media is a good source of allowing people to believe certain things even if they may not be true. This is a case where one of the commercials against Obama is makign a man believe that Obamas ideas to help the country would be affecting him and his taxes which may or may not be true but are completely based of a unreliable source, a commercial.

2. McCain, Oct. 7:"He voted for nearly a billion dollars in pork-barrel earmark projects, including, by the way, $3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois. My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?" This is true that he did request 3 million dollars yet as this quote from factcheck will prove the statement is not completely correct. "The fact is, however, that the technology Obama requested was not an "overhead projector" such as one might see in a classroom or office."

3. Overall the press and media were talking a lot more about the plus things that Obama did while McCain got the brutal side of it. He was being commented on what he said and just overall the talk was about how Obama did and how he did an overall better job that McCain did which im sure McCain supporters werent to thrilled about.

FactCheck

The Presidential Debates Historical Background

History of the Presidential Debates and how they Help US.

We have no always had presidential debates to allow the public to understand the ideas that our canidates have on certain topics.

This connects to my class because it shows how the presidential debates are not something new but they are something that people have been using for almost 30 to 40 years before they took a break. Before that they even used them in the civil war times like the Lincoln Douglas debates we learned so much about.

I think that these debates are a good idea to allow the people to choose the right canidate they believe can do a good job in office. It allows the media to be a little less of a factor because if all we knew about them was commercials we would be picking a president more for if we liked the song more than the other one rather than the facts that are shown to us through these 2 to 2 and a half our long discussions. So overall the person who came up with these debates was very smart and new it would help our nation.

Internet Democracy

In Todays World the Average Person Lives off the Internet

Published: January 3, 2007

The internet has allowed people to expereince the wealth information that people would not be able to get in old days. All the news almost every piece of work both literary and open speech are able to be seen and read just by a click of the mouse. This article talks about the preservation of Internet Democracy as well as what it is.

This connects to our project because it answers the question on Randies DP as well as show us the kids who are growing up in the day and age of technology to see how the internet affects us and how people in the days where computers werent invented got there information on a day to day basis.

Personally I find the internet to be an invalluable tool of not just information but allows us to open our horizons. It allows us to think outside the box and learn things not only at school but learn certain essential tools that will help us later in life.

We Should Not Put Money Into Banks... Wait We Are?s

Just a few weeks ago Bush said they were not going to put money into banks but now we are?

Just like on the Daily Show Treasury Secretary Paulson was talking about how Japan just put money into banks we wont do what Japan did yet now... We are what caused these turn of events and what caused this to happen? The Secretary is going to be injecting 250 Billion dollars not to the people who are losing there houses no to the people who are taking them. The banks are receiving this money so they can distribute it to people who need it.

This connects to class because one it affects our whole country so why doesn't it exclude our class secondly we had debates on how we feel on it and it is the biggest topic in the presidential debates which is a major part of what we are doing in class at the moment.

Personally I think this money is going to the people who screwed up in the first place for giving people loans they couldn't afford which affects all of us sadly. I think in that theory our system is flawed. Why should we get punished because a company wants an extra buck? is that fair? So what I think needs to happen is for that currency to be put into banks but have it monitored so that the money goes towards the people who are foreclosing house or losing all there assets because the banks just cant come up with the money.

By MARK LANDLER

Published: October 14, 2008

Reflection

Aaron Rucinski
10/14/08

Reflection

Personally I think the overall product of our newspaper front page was done fairly well and a lot of time was put into it. Some things that reflect this hard work is the article I wrote about the Nebraska Act which was a major part of the Lincoln Douglas debates. Plus the demographic shows who would be affected by this act and how there would’ve have been more slave states rather than Free states causing the balance to be uneven. Another thing I contributed was my Photoshop picture I made of Lincoln and Douglas in front of the American flag. The last thing I contributed to the group was how much I worked on the Indesign. I went and stayed in for lunch to even do it. I tried really hard on it and made sure it was the highest quality I could do. I tried getting help from Randy and picked his brain for ideas on how to make it look more physically appealing. In the end I think it turned out really well.

Some things I think I need to change are the small things like looks and the lines I made. I also need to work on the spacing of the articles and the overall presence the piece has as the reader looks at it. I would also try to make the Photoshop thing I made a bit more historically accurate like Lincoln being taller and the right flag in the back not the one from present day. Plus I think I would make my headline a bit stronger and make sure all the headlines weren’t done so quickly and as a group thought about how they should be written because that’s what attracts people to read your article so it is very important to have a good headline.

Overall I think I worked very hard on this project yet I know in the first two days I had a tough time staying focused making it harder for me to get good evidence for my my article which was basically what a news article is all about. When I was working on the Indesign program I thought it was a lot of fun so I would work hard and made sure I used my time wisely to make it the best it could be. I got people input and asked Randy on certain parts that I didn’t know what to do and any opinions he had about it or ideas on how to make it look better or appeal to the audience. On the last day, Monday at the end of the first hour of work time I thought I was done so I was just talking instead of doing my work. After I had Jacob and Randy came out to look at it I noticed how much had to be done since Randy just went and said like 10 different things we had to do that would make our project look a lot better and personally I think he right. I think it looks a lot better and draws the reader in better after I did what he said. One thing I think would have helped out a lot is if we printed out a copy first to see how it would look then go and fix any mistakes there would be back on the computer and that would be the final draft. That would have stopped a lot of the spacing issues I had when I printed out my final draft this time.

The Debates, Past and Present

Part 1
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas had to completely different ideas on slavery. Douglas believed in popular sovereignty while Lincoln wanted slavery to be abolished completely but did not believe in equal rights for blacks and whites. A quote from Douglas tries to explain that if slavery is to be abolished it should have been abolished when the constitution was written. “Uniformity in the local laws and institutions of the different States is neither possible nor desirable. If uniformity had been adopted when the Government was established, it must inevitably have been the uniformity of slavery everywhere, or else the uniformity of Negro citizenship and Negro equality everywhere.”

Douglas thought the Nebraska Act will allow people to pick if they anted slavery in there territory or not but this would lead to them becoming slave territories because of the polls that were giving to him showed that more people would vote for slavery rather than against it. This quote is Douglas talking about what the Nebraska Act will do. "It is the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any State or Territory, or to exclude it there from, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the federal constitution." While Abraham believed that it should be the federal government that steps in and solves this problem, more people at that time believed in slavery even in the north so the public favored Douglas over Lincoln.

Part 2
The Democrats and the Republicans have very similar ideas in most areas but some places they differ at are foreign affairs and our economy. Both have different plans to make our country better but we will not be able to see if they will work till they are in office and implement the plans they are talking about. After watching the presidential and reading about the vice presidential debates, it has shown me that you understand more of what’s happening and both sides of the argument if you actually watch it rather than reading sources that may be bias and wont give all of the information but just the information that lets the person they want to win to seem like they did amazing while they make the other person look like he lost which in maybe another source it may be switched because he is bias as well just for the opposite person.

Demographics...

Some questions I have about demographics are how do they attain all this information. Do they use online sources or do they go to peoples houses? Other than that they make things fairly straight forward so I do not have any other questions.

This demographic showed me how there really are more boys then girls in San Diego. There is a lot more from the ages 1 to 50 but after that the number starts switching and there are more girls that makes me think... do girls live longer than guys and if they do... what causes them to live so long. Maybe girls are holding out on us and know ways to live longer but they just don not want to share it with us.

If you wanna see the demographic click here

Segregation Abolished? Or Just Hidden From Us...

Brown vs. Board of Education

The case Brown vs. Board of Education which ended on May 17^th 1954, was a case that changed a major part of U.S. society. The supreme courts decision in this case resulted in the abolishment of educational segregation of African Americans. During the case the Supreme Court used the process Judicial Review to reconsider the law that banned White and Black students from going to school together. The law that this case was challenging was set by the Plessy vs. Fergusson case in 1896. All nine justices agreed that the law was unconstitutional so the law was overturned.

The first case that was seen by the Supreme Court about black rights was the Dred Scott vs. Sanford case; Dred Scott sued the wife of his owner after the owner suddenly died. This caused uproar between the Slave and Free states. The free states believed that he should be allowed freedom while the slave states believe otherwise. The outcome of this case was the Supreme Court throwing it out on the grounds that black people didn’t have the same rights that white people had and one of those rights was the ability to sue another person.

In modern times segregation is not as big of an issue as it was during the Civil War but it is still palpable in certain regions of the United States. Surveys show there are more black people who live in the south than the north and there are less black people who enroll in top notch high schools and colleges. One article showing statistics on the amount of black people going to school in the south stated; “In 1991, 39% of black students in Southern states attended schools that were majority white; in 2003, only 29% did.” This shows that things have changed and are starting to revert to the old ways of legal segregation and social racism. It shows us that the problem with educational racism is still apparent in our time and segregation is not gone, and though it may not be as bad as it was after the Civil War things need to change. One of my partners for this project: Will Schrenkeisen, believes that with slavery abolished people looked for a new source of cheap labor, and came up with sweatshops. In America there are many laws about appropriate pay and worker rights that are not present in every country. He believes without slave labor we have shifted from slavery to the exploitation of citizens in other countries like China and Vietnam.

Brown vs. Board of Education. United States. Judicial. Kansas: Http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=347&invol=483, 1954.

Fuentes, Annette. "Http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/2007-03-13-segregation_N.htm?csp=34." USA Today. 13 Mar. 2007. Segregation is back in class. 2 Oct. 2008