Blog 4

A personal honors history:

1. What did you gain from your experiences as an honors student in the first semester (please consider novels, leadership opportunities, writing, history, projects, etc.)?
I gained a lot more information on history such as in depth health care and reading old literature that I would probably never read such as The Scarlet letter and Beloved. They were both good books where I learned about history and issues that are faced even today. I also feel like I'm more of a better reader we had deadlines and so I developed more vocabulary words I didn't know before which will be useful on the SAT.

2. Discuss what you might have done differently if you could do this past semester of honors over again.
I probably would ask for help there were some blogs that I had trouble doing but I didn't ask for help so I did it by myself and I feel like they weren't as good as the could have been if I did ask for help.

3. Discuss your goals for honors in the second semester.
I don't know if I'm going to take it next semester, but if I do then it would be to pay more attention in class, so I can complete the honors assignment at ease.

4. If you could choose any specific parts of literature and.or history for our honors work next semester, what would you pick and why?
I want to focus on something other an US history if possible because I already learned it last year and learning it this year is boring and I want to learn about other countries.

honors blog 3

In a well-developed, polished essay that is supported by thoughtfully-chosen direct evidence and less than 500 words, please answer the following:

Explain one specific program from the New Deal that you would like to modernize and bring to today's society. Explain which one you picked, what this program originally did during the New Deal, why you picked it and exactly how you see it working in present-day and/or future American society. You may use the New Deal program as it is, revise or alter it to make it fit modern life or use it as a basis for something new.

The program that I chose was the Civil works administration. The civil works administration was a program that was created on November 8,1933 by Franklin D Roosevelt. The way this worked was they would give jobs to people for construction howveer this ended because after costing $200 million a month. So much was spent on this administration because it hired 4 million people and was mostly concerned with paying high wages. It ended in 1934 in large part due to opposition to its cost. The significance of this was that it created 255,000 miles of roads, 40,000 schools, etc. Opposing views would argue that even though it helped people by giving them jobs the cost was just too much so it wasn't worth it. How much was it? It costed $400,000,000.

I picked this because right now America is somewhat in a economic crisis and there are several people without jobs right now. I would alter this by making sure it doesn't cost so much money that's the last thing America needs. So perhaps field workers could be jobs for people because it is needed and it couldn't cost that much and that job would be better than having no job at all.

Resources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Works_Administration

Blog 20

The issue that I chose was segregated schools, there was a time where where schools and other places such as a hospital were also segregated by whites and blacks. The issue was that this was racist because black students would have to go to a school where they didn't get a good education while white students got to go to a better looking building and a higher education. This made it okay so that state sponsored schools were allowed to separate schools. This would be anti-federalist because it was a state choice rather than government. "After the American Civil war (1861–1865), the government was able to provide some protection for the civil rights of the newly freed slaves." The group of people who took action took their case to the supreme sourt agruing that the board of education was violating the 14th amendment. which is that no state may deny equal protection of the laws to any person within its jurisdiction.

Interview:

1. What do you think about state government making their own laws rather than federal?

I personally believe that states having their own laws are pointless in a sense. In the end the federal government makes the final decision. Plus, many times state laws get in conflict with federal laws which just causes too many issues. If each state has different laws, i feel that they discriminate in a sense. If California doesn't allow Gay Marriage, but Arizona does, then California is a discriminating state in a sense. Of course it is up to the people to vote on what they believe, but how is a person from California different than a person in Washington? Also, another issue i have with states having their own policy is the fact that you have to pay more taxes in one state compared to another. I feel that the united states needs to be more UNITED. By letting states set all these different laws, we are not as united as we say we are.

2. When schools were seperated from blacks and whites, a team of people came up with this new law that was against the school board and they argued that it was racist and unfair that they should be seperated, so this group took this law into their own hands, what do you think of the action they took?

The people that put this law into their own hands are using a great gift we have in America. I really love the fact that they gathered people together to face the federal government about an issue they felt passionate about. This truly shows that we the people do have a voice in our government and its a beautiful thing that we have in the United States.

3. How would you relate the case of Brown vs. The Board of Education to a current issue going on today?

If I remember correctly, many people took the case of Prop 8 in their hands to prove it that it was unconstitutional.

honors post 1

Obama's health care Act

What makes this significant to all American citizens

In America there are many American families that cannot afford health care for themselves and their family, this has been a controversy for many families because they are concerned about how they will pay for medical bills. I believe that Obama's health care reform is one of the most significant element of health care legislation in American history because it has been a heated topic, American citizens with low incomes will be able to afford health care, and America is following the footsteps of other countries.

According to whitehouse.gov/healthreform it says, “Health reform makes health care more affordable, holds insurers more accountable, expands coverage to all Americans and makes our health system sustainable.” On March 23, 2010, the Affordable Care Act became law. While this may be a relief to citizens others may argue against it, for this reason it has been a debate between different political parties such as Democrats verses Republicans. Democrats obviously are for the Act while Republicans believe that there should be more of a free market. Now that it has been signed the bill will be taken into effect but will take a while to be put into effect. This means that low income families are going to be able afford medical bills but how?

The way this plan works is that people who already originally could afford healthcare wont really benefit from this because there will be a tax increase for healthcare which is how people who cant afford it will be able to now thanks to taxes that everyone else paid for. A lot of people who can afford it are mad at the idea because they don't want to spend their tax money on other people, the way they think is, “I'm not sick so why should I pay for someone else health care with my hard earned money?” This though is understandable because there are two ways people think one if you have a lot of money then it should all be yours because you worked on hard on it. The other would believe that the reason you earned a lot of money in the first place was because other people helped you, so some of the money you earn should go back to society. An other issue that follows up is arguments whether universal health care will make America loose or save money on the long run.

According to Joel A. Harrison he believes that because America is following the foot steps of other countries such as Canada, Germany, and France that America will save money because they spend less money on health care. “the United States spent 15.3% of GDP on health care in 2004, while Canada spent 9.9%, France 10.7%, Germany 10.9%, Sweden 9.1%, and the United Kingdom 8.7%.” Despite these statistics though America already owes China a lot of money, so although it could save money on the long run it is not for sure because there could be other factors contributing to this. The new health care law will take a while before people see effects on how it saves or waste money.

There are many events in US history that just as this new bill introduced by Obama has effected the way health care is such as the civil rights act which helped desegregate hospitals but I chose this because it is recent and many controversies it has caused because it is effecting everyone for better or worse. It is an event that will follow the foot steps of other countries and could either save or waste money. Either way it is significant because it affects all the classes.

Resources:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/healthreform

Bryan Young, “A Good Case for Universal Health Care ,” HuffingtonPost.com, June 7, 2008. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bryan-young/a-good-case-for-universal_b_105866.html

Joel A. Harrison, “Paying More, Getting Less,” Dollars and Sense, May 8, 2008. http://dollarsandsense.org/archives/2008/0508harrison.html

blog 19

1. What are you most proud of in your Life: The Book writing? Try to describe this is detail!
I'm proud of the government verses parents controversies I found, I felt like this section of my article was not only infromative but interesting to read as well.

2. What are some changes or new ideas that you have developed in your writing through the course of this semester?
I learned new writing tips that I can use in other writing assignments and I did a better job with my introduction and conclusion.

3. If you had a little more time to work on your writing for LifE: The Book, what would you do differently? What would you change about your writing?
I would probably make it flow a little better it was hard getting it just right, I know there were some parts when I went to what HPV was and then I jumped to why you should get the vaccine early.

4. How has the additional element of publication in a book affected the way you approach writing?

It made me write it more professionally so when people read my story they will learn something new.