Senior Reflection #1

As an underclassman I always heard people talking about getting senioritis, but I always thought it wouldn't be that big of a problem for me....man was I wrong. As we get so close and yet are still so far away from graduating, it has gotten really hard to stay motivated. Througout high school we have been taught to work towards tests and having a good gpa to get into college, so now that AP exams are done and I know where I am going next year, what do I have to motivate me to keep doing work. Recently I heard that Arlington County has something called "senior experience" where for the last month of school seniors get to finda internships and what not that can relate to things they enjoy and carreers they are interested in pursuing, and I thought it sounded awesome. I personally feel like this would be a more productive way to spend our last month than having busy work that no one really has the motivation to try on.

CE #1- Clinton speaks to Yale grads about unequal world

Former President Bill Clinton gave a Class Day Speech to graduating Yale seniors on Sunday. IN his speech Clinton warned the students that upon graduating they would be left to face the wolrd's three main flaws: "It is too unstable; it is too unequal, and it is completely unsustainable." Clinton followed this by encouraging the gradutes that they now have the ability to change these flaws, and that they could do so by working together. In the remainder of his speech Clinton focused on the idea that people have too much access to media and informaton that is so easily biased based on what people want to hear and what they agree with. "In our media habits, we go to the television sites, we go to the radio talk shows, we go to the blog sites that agree with us, and it can have very bizarre consequences." Clinton left the graduates with his idea that the mission of every empowered person in the world should be to increase the positive forces and decrease the negative forces of the world's interdependence.

I chose this article because I thought it would be interseting to see what the President spoke about in his speech to graduates as I will soon be listening to a graduation speech myself. I thought the article was well written and enjoyed it. I thought Clinton made a pretty good point in that most people today listen only to media that they agree with and that they can use to destroy something they dont believe in, when what they should be doing is listening to both ends of the arguement and figuring out away to solve the problem in a way that will be beneficial.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-05-23-clinton-yale_N.htm

Editorial #5-"The future of flight"

This editorial discusses the Next Generation Air Transportation System known as NextGen. The Federal government is spending billions of dollars to equip the nation's airports with this satellite-based technology that is said will make air travel faster, safer and greener. According to the author the system will allow air traffic controllers to know the precise locations of an aircraft, and it will allow more takeoffs and landings and more direct routes. The reduced congestion, fuel use and pollution will eventually improve air carrier profitability. The problem with this system however is that it costs between $25 billion and $30 billion, and many airlines are not happy with having to pay their share of the price.

In my opinion it is a very good decision to bring this new technology into air travel, after all "The global positioning system in your car -- even your Wii -- is infinitely more advanced than the 1950s-era radar system used to guide planes in and out of the nation's airports." I do however understand that as many of the airlines are already struggling as a result of the poor economy, so this type of spending might not be something they want. I think it would be a good compromise to have this new technology put into planes that are being made, and then rather then installing it in all old planes, gradually grandfather in the new planes and get rid of the old planes as they are no longer needed or useful. This plan would take longer, but it would update the technology while limiting the amount of money airlines have to pay.

Editorial #4- Iraq Counts Votes

This editorial is about the elections that were held in Iraq last Sunday. According to the author although the election started out violently it ended well with a better voter turnout than past elections, and even the last U.S. presidential election. So far it looks like it is a close race between the Shiite coalition of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a second Shiite alliance and a nationalist and secular ticket that received heavy support in Sunni areas. The author also expressed that keeping competition among rival blocs confined to the vote count and the negotiations to form a new ruling coalition would be a huge feat for Iraq, in staying away from the sectarian violence that they often have problems with. According to the author of this editorial Mr. Maliki and nationalist leader Ayad Allwai have the best chance of winning the election and leading the new government as opposed to candidates from Iran. Mr. Maliki signed a strategic framework with the Bush administration and has already demonstrated his capacity to resist Iranian influence. Mr. Allawi is even more interested in an alliance with Washington and has good relations with Arab Sunni governments that have shunned Mr. Maliki's administration.

I agree with this editorial in that it seems like so far the election in Iraq is pretty successful. While there is talk about fraud because of the close results, it seems that the turnout, and limited amount of violence involved in the election are good signs for the direction in which Iraq is headed. I think it would be a very good thing if either Mr. Maliki or Mr. Allawi were elected, because they both seem to be working in the right direction for helping to develop a more stable government in Iraq. Also I think either of these candidates would be a good choice because both seem interested in keeping on good terms with the American government, which is a very good thing in my opinion!

Editorial #3- The Blogging Storm Over Recalls

This editorial addressed the recent recalls seen by Americans, and the effect modern day technology has had on the media's coverage f these recalls. The recalls brought up in the article, included the Toyota recalls, as well as girl scout cookies, and other food products. A large portion of this editorial was devoted to talking about how new technologies such as blogging and twitter have allowed consumers to cause the large amount of media coverage that these recalls have been getting. As the author put it, "What journalist could resist chasing a story where the outraged victims neatly line up before his eyes?" The author of this editorial seemed to give the opinion that theses recalls are not that important but that they get so much media coverage simply because of all the outlets and resources journalists have for finding angry consumers of the products being recalled. The editorial then continues to analyze different "myths that have been obliterated by the social-media-inspired public relations crisis." These myths include: the public won't care about it if it's old news, responding to bad news only spreads more bad news, and if mainstream news media tires of the story so too will the bloggers.

I agree with the author of this editorial that blogging and other social networking sites definitely result in an increase in the coverage of certain events. If the public shows obvious concern for something (which is easily done through blogs and twitter), then the media will want to focus on covering those topics, because their goalis to cover what the public will be most interested in. I am not sure however how much I agree with his opinion that the events covered as a result of it being an interest to public are not actually things the public needs to hear that much about. Sure the girl scout cookie recall is not all that important, after making sure people get rid of these cookies, not much else needs to be said about it, but when it comes to the Toyota recall, I think it deserved the amount of news coverage it got, considering the severity of the problem being recalled. I do agree with the author's proposed myths. The public tends to dwell on subjects and events that bring harm to them at the fault of someone else, so it is true they they will continue to focus on the issue after the media has finished with it, and it definitely does not makes things worse to make apublic apology, the people want to hear the makers acknowledged their mistakes, and apologize for them.

Editorial #2- A Natural Choice

This editorial is about the idea that natural gas may be effective in reducing carbon emissions. Burning natural gas produces half the emissions as does burning coal, which means using natural gas as a source of energy instead of coal could put a large dent in America's carbon footprint. The author of this editorial states that there were rumors of President Obama supporting legislation that would discourage the use of coal and encourage the use of natural gas in his speech to the Business Roundtable on Wednesday. The author also said however that these rumors seemed to have been false, which is unfortunate, because nudging natural gas forward is something that the government can do quickly and relatively cheaply, to meet its medium-term emissions goals. This editorial also shared the importance of making sure America doesn't rely too much on one commodity for their energy. A drastic increase in the amount of natural gas burned would require infrastructure investments in certain regions as well as retrofits of certain plants, or the construction of completely new ones.

I agree with this editorial in the sense that if the burning of natural gas n order to generate energy can in fact reduce America's carbon footprint drastically, it is something worth looking into. With that said, I think it is important that we "look into" and research the effects of using natural gas a little bit more before any major legislation is passed. In my opinion if we use to much of any source of energy there have got to be some pretty serious effects on the environment. It would be great if there was some source of energy out there that was not bad for our environment at all, but unfortunately that hasn't been found yet, and I don' think it will be discovered anytime soon. I think that what we know about natural gas being better than coal sounds good, but that a bit more research should be done on what problems the use of natural gas could produce that coal does not cause.

Editorial #1- Lessons in the snow

Summary- This editorial discusses the effects the recent blizzard had on the Washington area. For the most part the blizzard was not to catastrophic, the were only a few deaths, and the homeless and the sick were given special attention. There were certain areas in which D.C. could have been better prepared however. One of these areas was the metro system. The author argues that when the metro closes the federal government also has to close, and although the amount of snow we got poses major problems for metro, we should have some kind of plan of how to solve the problem. Also the author argued that the federal government should do more to help the metro in this situation seeing as how tens of millions of dollars in forgone productivity are lost everyday the federal government is closed. Another issue addressed in the article was whether or not jurisdictions should impose alternate parking areas and sidewalks so that there is somewhere we can put the snow when we get as much as we did in this last blizzard.

My opinion- I would have to agree that our area did a pretty good job of controlling the situation during the blizzard of 2010. Sure there were some roads that were in pretty bad shape for a few days, but in the large scheme of things it was made sure that people in special situations such as the homeless were safe, and roads were cleared enough for emergency vehicles to get around pretty quickly considering how much snow we got. I also agree with what the author said about the metro. Poor metro has had quite a bad rap lately, but I think their controlling their snow conditions is just one more aspect they need to improve. As for the talk about imposing new side walks, parking areas, etc., I think it is a good idea in theory, but I;m just not sure it's where our money should be going right now. As we all know the economy isn't exactly in the greatest shape ever, and I think there are more pressing issues that deserve attention and funding over this jurisdiction.