censored or UNCENSORED?

I comment in response to Helia G.'s post.

Oh WikiLeaks, how amazing you are! What better way to receive news the UNCENSORED way. Wait, that's how news to use be right? Honestly, if the Government acts with true altruistic intention and to help its own people, then such classified documents should be able to be viewed by the public and for the public the uncensored way. With the way how WikiLeaks operates, you can get documents in the most uncensored way possible. This kind of all goes back to making informed decision back at around Exam 1/Exam 2'ish. Give the public something to vote on and gather the results. Educate the public again and then have the public re-vote on the topic and compare the results.

So turn time back to the present, if we could ask the public to give an opinion about a topic and then gather the response, would the response be completely different after reading uncensored documents? What does the government really have to hide? I mean really, what are they so afraid of? That the public would step up and over through the Government completely and create a new? Probably.

In a time like the 21st century, it is truly almost impossible to hide anything from the public. I believe WikiLeaks exist to shine light on documents that are hidden from the public eye. Presenting news in it rawest form was what we all used to hope for from our government. No wonder we're so skeptical of our Government because you can't believe anything that's on the news anymore. Everything is so biased and skewed. One can only hope that documents like these will either destroy a society or completely give the public more credit than we really do deserve. BRAVO Julian Assange! Cheers to a new future way of war.

Profit or Fatness?

In Jonathan N.’s blog, The Fight for Obesity, he argues who Obesity is becoming an issue in America. He brings out good points where certain places are changing the way how food is presented to the public such as school lunches, the removal of soda vending machines, and restaurants providing nutrition facts about their dishes. But are these minor changes really enough to fight against obesity though?

For someone like me who works as a nurse and sees patients day in and day out with these long term complications, it's sad to see that most of these health problems were completely preventable if treated in the early stages. I agree that the government should step in and try to implement something to help control this scary phenomenon. Did you know that a small order of fries here in America is considered a LARGE order or fries in France? ZOMG! I’m never eating anything fast food or fries every again! It’s no wonder the Europeans are so thin and healthy. I’m pretty sure their public transportation system could also be another contribution to their healthy lives.

As Jonathan said what it boils down to is “economy or obesity?” Eventually, there comes a point where insane amount of profits will eventually return with a big slap to the face. The quality of life starts looking better rather than making profit at the expense of people’s lives. I believe by regulating portion controls and providing healthier fast food options, this will in return keep our citizens happy, slim, and most of all healthier! On top of being healthier, the need for insurance coverage and health care cost would dramatically decrease, and all of our tax dollars could be used for something of better use rather than paying for someone’s horrible eating habits and poor health conditions that could have been easily fixed by a simple regulation.

Treatment, care, and a better life for EVERYBODY! Poor or Rich.

Take a moment to step out of your current life and into this imaginary life where the day you are born to the day you die, you are provided with care and indirect love by your fellow citizens of the country you are currently in. Imagine a life where if you or your wife has just been given birth to a child and you are given 6 months of paid time off to nurture and tend to your family needs. Imagine 2 months of paid time off a year to do whatever the hell you want to do?! Imagine a country “aimed at flattening the income distribution, eliminating poverty, ensuring social services such as retirement, medical care, and disability benefits to all, and putting more of the capital into the public trust.” That’s right! Ladies and gentleman, I present to you this lovely country called Norway.

Norway has adopted this “egalitarian values to ensure that the wage difference between the lowest paid worker and the CEO of most companies is much smaller than in comparable western economies and because of this the cost of living is about 30% higher in Norway than in the United States and 25% higher than the United Kingdom. The standard of living in Norway is among the highest in the world.” Prison cells in Norway have been compared to an average middle class American home. WHOA! What does the quality of a home look like outside of a prison cell?!

Now I ask you readers, why is it that the United States is just has highly developed as Norway, but lack so far behind in terms of standard and quality of life? After doing many comparison between the US and Norway, the differences lies within the way how we think and treat each other. In Norway, they have figured out a way to slam down the salaries of those CEOs bitches and made it possible to prevent any kind of social and financial inequality. Now wouldn’t that be great if we could blend the inequality between lowest paid worker and CEOs here in America? Norway citizens do not mind paying highly increased taxes to enjoy a better life for themselves and for their fellow citizens. Why can’t we adopt such thinking?

People! We have to change the way how we think and treat each other. If we don’t change this way of thinking nothing is going to ever be resolve. We have to put our individuality, greed, and religions aside and develop another way of thinking that binds us all together so that we can all agree on resolutions to progressively take care of our country and citizens as Norway has. This left versus right shit has got to stop. Now I’m not saying we must give up our freedom in order to move forward, but we can still retain our freedom and individuality and still be progressive. Freedom sure came with such an unusual price, didn't it? On a happier note, my grandma once said “Why must we fight? We all eat, sleep, poop, cry, laugh, smile, and bleed red regardless of our culture and race. We all want the same things, a happy and comfortable life.”

Substantial commentary or Criticism #2

The person who is making this argument is Chelsea Rudman and her blog appeared in Media MATTERS for America. The targeted audiences are the public employees and the author does not have to try hard to attract and keep her audience because this topic affects just about every US Citizen that use public services. “John Derbyshire, National Review Online contributor, today rehashed his 2003 argument that nonmilitary government employees shouldn't be allowed to vote. Public employees have a ‘conflict of interest’ when voting.”

Her argument was made to defend public employees; they too should be allowed to vote regardless of the “conflict of interest.” Now I couldn’t find any background or history on this Chelsea Rudman, so her argument to allow public employees to vote could be bias if she also works in the public service industry, but that’s beside the point. Each and every citizen in America should and will have the right to vote, regardless of their profession.

She does state that “anyone who uses public services -- like the post office, roads, schools, libraries, police, firefighters -- probably has a "conflict of interest" when voting. So does anyone who pays taxes.” So not only would public employees would not be able to vote, but also “We, the People” would also be considered in this category. At the end of her blog, she commented stating “Basically, he's saying our country would be a better place if people who don't agree with him couldn't vote. Who's ‘throttling our liberties out of existence,’ again?” How ironic isn’t it?

I totally agree with Chelsea Rudman, that such statement should not have been said in the first place. If such practice was to be put into effect, it would basically mean history would repeat itself and only “White property owners could vote” once again and it would be even better if Blacks were back to properties.


Chelsea Rudman, NRO's Derbyshire: Public employees should not be allowed to vote, http://mediamatters.org/, October 13, 2010
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201010130035

Substantial commentary or Criticism #1

The person who is making this argument is Frank Micciche. His article appeared in The New York Times under the Health care topic in the Opinion section. He is also an adviser for public policy at a Washington law firm. The targeted audience is the public and small individual businesses and eventually the big corporations. I believe the author does not have to try hard to attract and keep his audience because this topic affects every US Citizen. His argument was made to help smooth differences between both parties so that we can "move forward to expand access to health insurance and reduce health care costs." The answer is to this solution was Health insurance exchanges. By having these exchanges in place, individuals and groups are able to purchase health insurance "from a network of insurers."

He presents his ideas and also provides examples to support his argument, one of which was the "50-year-old Federal Employee Health Benefits program, which provides a nationwide network of some 250 plans to more than eight million government employees, retirees and their dependents. Many states operate programs like this for their own employees and those on municipal payrolls." He also explains how this idea has been experimented in several other states and how successful it has worked with tweaks here and there.

He does state that this idea alone cannot be achieve without the help of the federal government. He presents ideas how the government can take an active role is making this concept possible. One of the idea was to "distribute grants to study and design the exchanges" in states where the idea has become successful and to help grow and understand how to spread the success in other potential states.

I agree that Frank's argument was successful because this idea could possibly change the way how we select our health care plans. Individuals and small business would be able to select plans based on their needs and by having multiple competition in the market of "Health Insurance Exchanges," this could possibly result in driving down premiums, which would eventually result in affordable health insurance for the general public for both rich and poor. If the potential upcoming candidates for Presidency could somehow adopt and apply this concept for the US in a way where both parties can be accommodated, his or her likelihood of becoming President could potentially be dramatically increased, especially with the way how our current health care system is structured and how many of our citizens are currently uninsured that want to to be insured.


Frank Micciche, A Fair Exchange, http://www.nytimes.com/, July 27, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/opinion/28micciche.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Schwarzenegger: Same-sex weddings should resume

I believe EVERYONE should read this article from USA Today whether you are a supporter of same-sex marriage or not. The article explains why same-sex marriage should resume immediately after Court Judge Vaughn Walker's decision while we all wait for the higher courts to make their decision. Since Judge Walker has "declared Proposition 8 to be illegal, gay couples should be able to marry now."

One of the arguments was that by keeping Proposition 8 to stay "in effect until Walker's rule can be decided by higher courts" meant that gay couples "will continue to suffer irreparable harm if Proposition 8's irrational deprivation of their constitutional rights is prolonged."

As of now, Schwarzenegger has motion to "immediately resume gay marriage."

I believe if the roles were turned around and straight couples were the minorities of the gay world, we too would fight for our rights to be able to get married in their world. This is no different than when blacks could only marry blacks and whites could only marry whites. Remember the day when interracial couples were finally able to marry each other here in the US? Every interracial couple was running down to the courts to get their licenses finalized and official. How is this any different for gay couples?

My question to you as readers is why is it that we spend all of our energy fighting about such nonsense issues, when we can culture and gather all this energy to do something amazingly better and different and move on with our differences?  Why don’t we set a good example and show to other parts of the worlds that this issue too can be overcome. This is the reason why we love America and why it is better than other countries right?

On a good, as Martin Luther King once said "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."