The ACORN scandal vs. the potential for vote-suppression.

The the Association of Community Organizations for Reform. ACORN is an association that works in several social issues. one of them is the voter registration. Obviously it is not the only one that exists. But this one is now well known by everyone after McCain mentioned in he's debate that they were doing one of the biggest "frauds in voter history".

He said this because the ACORN has been submitting false or fake voter registration. what he didn't say is that, that's the ACORN's job. It is illegal for them to not turn in forms,even if they think is fake. It's not their responsibility to take care of these things. the election officials should be taking care of this. Another bad reason for McCain to say this is that is really hard for people that turn in fake registrations to actually vote. According to The nation's article,"If current polls and trends remain, it'll be extremely difficult for any possible fraud to affect the outcome of the presidential race". So basically this issue doesn't really make any effect on the coming elections.

The New York Times Article.

Writer from the Washington post.

Wikipedia's concept of ACORN

Wikipedia's concept of voter suppression.

CNN's article for the voter suppression

The Michigan Citizen newspaper article.

Blog #15 Debates in their historical context

The Presidential debates initiated on October 2nd. sense that day they've been a really important thing for American society to talk about. And even though everyone has a different opinion there's things that were clear, and no mater who wins, they become facts.

McCain and Obama. About the first debate most of the people said it was a tight. The fact is at least in the first debate Barack Obama was much more confident.
McCain keap talking about the 800 billion dollars Obama wants, and how much the democratic is going to increase taxes. And Obama keap on talking about deregulation.

On their second debate in October 7Th. Obama was going over the same things, like the plan he has to make economy better. McCain was saying how his going to "fix the US problems." They were pointing stuff to each other like the votes they made in the pass in congress. Obama said a few things about Bush. He explain how the US now owes more money to other countries because of Bush. so even though there was a lot of fighting, it wasn't that great. News say Obama won the second debate.

In their third and last debate I think everyone expected a little bit more. Obama for the third time went over he's plan to help America and of course, McCain still thinks that he can save the world by saying that he will fix things. The truth is, for me watching this debate was like watching the first or the second debate nothing different or new, well except for "Joe the plumer" I can't finish this post with out mentioning the guy that become famous for being mentioned over 23 times in the third debate. This three debates were definitely important to get to know better the candidates and to see them from another and more direct point of view. After all one of this to will take the US by the hand to it's future.

And if they don't do it the vice presidents will do it, that's for sure. so let's talk a little about what the substitutes said in their In the first and only vice presidential debate.

Sarah Palin and Joe Biden. She keap talking to the audience, and talking like if she was a middle class person. which I think people tend to like with out noticing. Badin did a great job but he was using Obama's words for everything. I don't know if that's the best thing. He tried to make his points by fighting and talking about them but Palin wouldn't let him because she wouldn't answer or she would start talking about something else. Actually she did that most of the time. When a question was made she would give her best answers to a whole different question.

I think that she has a lot of things against her, beginning with being a women, second having a pregnant daugther and third she only had one debate, one opportunity and she ruin it. But everyone sees things how ever they want to so I guess you can start a good one out of the debates.

Blog #14 How has the Internet affected the way that Americans approach democracy?

I think that Internet has a lot to do with democracy, because if you search for anything in the Internet, there will always be two sides for everything, good and bad, bad and good, so you never know. The point is everyone can give their point of view. That's democracy it's all about what every single person things. So I can write what ever I want, and let the world know trough the Internet. So yes it has affected the world.

Reflection "NeWsPaPeR"

This project was interesting because we learned to use another ways of writing, It was not about just sitting and writing whatever came to our heads, we had to actually write facts.
Our team had to do the front page of a newspaper, and pretend that it was 1858 on a September 18th, which means that the fourth debate between Lincoln and Douglas was going on in Charleston.

To make this happen we tried to make a good use of our time.
We divided the team in four segments. The Douglas article, the Lincoln’s article, the summary of the whole debate and finally the editor, and guy that would actually put all the pieces together. Will wrote the Douglas article, Wyatt did the summary, Jacob was the editor.

My job was to write Lincoln’s article. So what I did is I read the speech that he gave in the fourth debate and I also read a little of “Face the nation”, that was really helpful. It was really interesting to write the facts with out comments of my own, or with out relating it to the current events. I was getting use to that after a while of writing stuff with a personal touch, or relating it to what’s happening today in America.
It’s cool to different things and get out of the box, the truth is, I couldn’t wait to see our newspaper printed out.

After everything was all put together it seemed to look really good. Once we got it printed, the story changed. Besides the editor having some mistakes, (like putting a line between the writing), we had a lot of open space. I think we could of fill that with some fakes news, or “commercials”.

In my writing I noticed that I could of write more, and maybe write another article, I think that I had the idea that because it was in a newspaper I had to be quick and informative but ones is printed you kind of want to see more. At least I know what to do next time I have to write for a news paper.

I seriously can’t imagine how the big newspaper industries work, if they make a newspaper per day! We had a week and had a bunch of mistakes. Well, we had some good things too.
Overall the writing was pretty good and it had perfect spelling, I know that’s how it should be, but some teams didn’t, so I suppose that has to be good. I am proud of how we decided to take the whole idea into 1854, and we kind of did everything how we thought they would do it. For example we didn’t use colored pictures in our newspaper, that makes it look so good.

Well I can say I am really happy to be in the same team with this guys, they really took care of everything, it was so good to have someone reading what I wrote and telling me what I could improve. We explored different ways to write and that’s fun, but I still like writing what I think better.

My FaVooRiTee PicSs......

I like this picture because it has the cutest baby in the world in it. And I know him, his my brother. I don't know who took this picture, but I am guessing it was mom because it's eye level, and moms love doing that. I am not sure if it applies to the rule of thirds, but it's a great picture.

















I obviously love this picture because it has the Mexican flag in it, and because it was taking in Ensenada. But the view is excellent and the background (sky) is so beautiful.

















I just love this picture, I know is nothing like rule of thirds, but the use of the light is really interesting, it's bright in the back and it gets darker in the front, I Think that's the main point of the picture, not Ellen and Nat. (they are cute too.) but the front and background are wonderful.












In this picture the depth of field is good, and the picture is really colorful. And if you like Mexican folklor like i do, you'll like this pic.






This picture has the rule of thirds, you can see it in their kiss. the background is beautiful and is eye level even though is kind of far.

















I like the use of the light (sunrise) in this picture, and the truth is I google up "best picture in the world" and this is what came up.















In this one the day light is perfect, it is eye level, and the background is beutiful.


This picture is eyed level, and realistic, because if you were really looking at her, you would see blurry the part in the back.

Demographic what?! ohhh

Blog #11

The next article I think is a great example of what the impact of demographic areas will impact on the elections, It's about the latino voters in some states in the US, and their impact.

LOS ANGELES, Oct 07, 2008

Poll of Registered Latinos in Colorado, Florida, New Mexico and Nevada Suggests High Turnout; the Economy, and Candidate Support for Community Will Drive Election Outcomes

A significant percentage of Latino voters in key battleground states are either undecided or still open to persuasion in the presidential contest, according to a survey released today by The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund.

The survey of registered Latinos in Colorado, Florida, New Mexico and Nevada also demonstrates that Latino voters may turn out in unprecedented numbers and that the economy is their top election priority. Nearly a third of respondents said they had trouble making their mortgage or rent payments at some point during the past 12 months.
Issues such as the war in Iraq, health care and immigration reform are also at the top of voters' minds. Nearly a third believes there is no difference between the Republican and Democratic parties in their concern for Latinos.

"As the electoral map takes shape, it's increasingly clear the Latino vote may be decisive," said Arturo Vargas, Executive Director of the NALEO Educational Fund. "In key battleground states, Latino voters are ready to vote in huge numbers, and a significant percentage is still persuadable. Underestimating the Latino vote could be disastrous for either party," concluded Vargas.

Latino voter info

Debates: then and now.

The debates between Lincoln and Douglas were certainly a lot more different that what the debates are now a days. They had 7 debates in 7 different places. Each debate was three hours long!! The first person stared talking for an hour. The next one had a half an hour. And then the first speaker would finish with a half an hour.

The debates started on 1858. Everyone thought that Douglas would win the debates, not Lincoln. Only a few trusted him, but not even his supporters really did. The first one in Ottawa, The second one was in Freeport. In this one Lincoln started making his point and using strategies, He was against popular sovereignty and he was going to convince the people. Lincoln was against slavery and he was trying to prove that Douglas wasn't. In fact in the third debate at Jonesboro Douglas declared: "I hold that this government was made in the white basis, by white man for the benefit of white man and their prosperity forever, and should be administered by white man and none others". Think about it, If this country had his mentality Obama would not be running for president of the US right now.

The fourth debate was at Charleston, Three days later. In this one Lincoln said: "I'm not nor even have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes". He was saying that he was not interesting or looking toward to letting the Africans be on politics or anything, like Douglas said in the last debate. In Charleston people started noticing that Lincoln was winning power over the word war. In number five the number of crowd went up to 25,000 people. This one was at Galesburg in October 7Th. In this one Lincoln attach and said that the real difference between Douglas and the republicans was that the judge Douglas was that He didn't wanted to make any difference between slavery and liberty. In this fight Lincoln won in all points. In the next one at Quincy he came up with the same argument and won again. By the seventh and last one Douglas was week and his words were meaningless, so I'm guessing that was really easy for Lincoln, He would just have to go over the basic immorality of slavery and that was it.

And he did it but even though he won the debates he didn't win the elections what it doesn't really make sense for me. But two years later he won the presidential nomination.

OK now lets go a few years to the future.It's not Lincoln and Douglas. Is McCain and Obama. About this debate most of the people said it was a tight. I say Obama won. why? He was so relaxed about it and confident. now that doesn't mean that McCain did a bad job, H was just kind of boring. But hey, that's OK that's what politicians do right? they talk like that.

McCain keap talking about the 800 billion dollars Obama wants and how much he is going to increse taxes. And Obama keap on talking about dergulation.

On their second debate in october 7Th. Obama was going over the same things, like the plan he has to make economy better. McCain was saying how his going to "fix the US problems." They were pointing stuff to each other like the votes they made in the pass in congress. Obama said a few things about Bush. He explain how the US now ows more money to other countrys because of Bush. so even though there was a lot of fighting, it wasn't that great. News say Obama won the second debate.

In the first and only vicepresidential debate Palin vs Badin, She was really confident and she keap talking to the audience, and talking like if she was a midle class person. which I think people tend to like with out noticing.Badin did a great job but he was using Obamas words for everything. I don't know if that's the best thing. He tried to make his points by fighting and talking about them but Palin wouldn't let him because she woudn't answer or she would start talking about something else. It was propably a tight.

Funny video... Obama vs McCain.