"Better looking" students receive better grades in school

TIME posted an article address the study that better looking students have higher GPAs and succeed more in high school and go to college. 

Now as a high school student, after reading this I actually understand and see where this is true. Of course not always is it like this but it is definitely true that more attractive male and females receive more attention from teachers than "non-attractive" students. This could easily cause a difference in self-esteem and happiness which has some sort of affect on your grades. Students with a better relationship with the teacher are more likely to ask questions or absorb more information, and take extra credit classes, which results in better GPAs. It's sad to say I believe this true in our society, not just school. I've seen it in some of my classes in my 4 years of high school.

http://healthland.time.com/2013/12/10/teachers-give-better-grades-to-more-attractive-students-study/?iid=hl-main-lead

Healthcare

So I went to the doctor yesterday to get some bloodwork done and I didn't think anything of it, like how this affects my family just going there. I'm there and I pay my $20 co-pay and I get tested for 12 different things. When I got home I had my dad explain how our insurance works and if they cover this and he told me that they don't cover any of these payments and that we would get the actual bill later from the insurance. Apparently when Obama took office insurance changed for us and the only way we get covered is if we pay up to a certain amount in out-of-pocket expenses. He says it's never been this way for us and at this point I got really mad. Why do we pay for healthcare if they don't cover a dime of the costs? For us we have to pay $2,000 in fees before our insurance starts covering things, but when the does the average person actually hit that limit? It's ridiculous. This seemingly useless doctors visit just cost my family $250, money that we don't have, which is why we pay for healthcare. Obama's healthcare plan may help the very poor but it's certainly not helping single income middle class families. 

Government shutdown ends

I went to bed last night at 10 pm after waiting for the bill to be passed about ending the government shutdown and raising the debt ceiling. I didn't want to post this before it actually happened, in case anything crazy happened.

So the cycle continues of not getting anything done inside the government but what else is new? Due to our divided government, nothing has been accomplished. The only thing that has is further tension between parties. Obamacare has already been approved and gone through judicial review and is set to be activated but the Republicans refuse to let it happen even though they are at a complete disadvantage. They maybe saving us from trouble in the moment but having the raise the debt limit as much as they have, in the long term, it only does harm. 

Hopefully by the beginning of 2014, the government will cooperate with each other and figure out a solution, but I won't be surprised if this is pushed back even further.

Is Music the Key to Success?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/opinion/sunday/is-music-the-key-to-success.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

Many of the country's most successful people such as Paul Allen, Woody Allen, Chuck Todd, Larry Page, and even Condoleezza Rice connected their musical studies to their success in their careers. They say that music opened up the pathways to creative thinking. Their experiences suggest that music training sharpens qualities like collaboration, such as listening, weaving ideas together, and focusing on the present and the future simultaneously.

Mr. Todd says there is a connection between years of practice and competition and what he call's the "drive for perfection." The big thing about music is that it makes you try harder because you keep practicing. And that practice makes you more likely to double and triple check your work, because of that strive for perfection.

"Consider the qualities these high achievers say music has sharpened: collaboration, creativity, discipline and the capacity to reconcile conflicting ideas. All are qualities notably absent from public life. Music may not make you a genius, or rich, or even a better person. But it helps train you to think differently, to process different points of view - and most important, to take pleasure in listening."

Being an aspiring music educator, this article makes me happy. :)

NYC has a murder-less week

http://nypost.com/2013/10/14/no-murders-this-week-in-nyc/

I found this article today and I thought it was interesting. NYC has a had a week without any murders! It's a weird accomplishment but it is definitely good to see. But on a larger scale, this is a part of a general lower murder rate, in NYC, over the last year.

Over the last year the murder rate has dropped 26% in NYC. Its exciting to see these numbers especially in the most known city in the world.

It will be interesting to see how this dip in the murder rate may affect other rates such as crime rates, not only in NYC but surrounding areas.

$15/hour Minimum Wage

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/09/seattle-mayor-would-support-minimum-wage-above-15/2955019/

Seattle's Mayor Mike McGinn says that the minimum wage should be increased to $15 per hour. Now as a teenager about to have to pay for college this sounds INCREDIBLE. And apparently so does a lot of Seattle citizens, who are very hyped about the idea of this increase. In fact, Seattle already has the highest minimum wage at $9.19 per hour, about $2 more than the federal minimum wage.

Many businesses in Seattle haven't shown much concern about it besides the fact that it may affect small businesses. The president and CEO of Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce said her organization shares a broader concern about the income gap and wants to make sure that people aren't left behind.

McGinn understands that this is a long a process and in the end would benefit the people the most. Nick Licata, a member of the city council, said he doesn't expect the issue to move quickly. They have other issues to address.

I think this is fantastic. There are going to positives and negatives if it were to happen, but where I am today, this is great.

China's new secondary school rules

China recently has encouraged certain rules in their secondary school to discourage "young love" among the students. "They must maintain a minimum distance of half a meter from each other at all times. In addition, boys and girls are not allowed to go around school premises in pairs." Are you serious? Honestly, I don't think the rule change is going to do anything but was it really necessary? But at the same time, I understand that parents and teachers want their students to work hard at school to better prepare them for the future, but what has changed that made them have the urge to enforce this rule? It beats me. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-24347175

Celebrity Child "Protection"

Well, besides Ted Cruz's filibuster (whether it was one or not), it has been a slow news week for the most part. So the only thing reletively interesting that has happened is that California has passed a bill aimed at paparaazi that says if you take a picture of a celebrity's child, you could go to jail. Now I'm not opposed to celebrities wanting their child's privacy protected, but to go as far as getting a bill passed to do it is funny. Actually, as I'm thinking about it, if I were a celebrity I think I would want my child protected from harassment and trauma. 

The fine for people who violate this new law can be a maximum of $10,000 and imprisonment to a max of one year in county jail. I'm sure these maximum penalities are for people who are charged multiple times for the offense but its still a lot of money.

I support this bill because the child is not the celebrity. The parents are the celebrities and they are the ones who should be harassed (between the two). Once the child decides they want to put themselves out there, either acting or modeling, and has made the mature decision to take paparazzi head on, then the press can go nuts. Otherwise, stay away from the children. Let them grow up with privacy.

Free Press

The role of the press in a free society is to cover news and broadcast important events to the people. They aren't completely free to do what they want but it seems like they keep their boundaries, and not go too far with things. There are some stories that shouldn't be covered by the press, like some celebrity personal issues, to tragic mass killings, to an extent. The press shouldn't interview anyone at the scene of a mass killing, it is inappropriate and reporters usually don't cross that line. 

Journalism is sometimes called the "rough draft" of history because they do not know the full truth of situations. Reporters won't ever know the full 100% of a story because they are querying information from multiple sources and trying to build a story off of it.

Whether its full truth or partial truth, I feel that free press is vital to our society in the US. Without free press there would be opportunity to censor our news coverage and we wouldn't get it as efficiently as today. With social media is great that we can see news of an event right after it happens.

Syria

So from what I understand, the killings in Syria started with protestors started challenging the government. The government's response is to kill their own civilians? It's really baffling to me that their government thought that murder was the best solution to the problem. Especially since now they've started a civil war. 

From the article "9 questions about Syria you were too embarrassed to ask" on The Washington Post, the writer brings up the fact that there are protests in lots a places and questions why it went so wrong in Syria. My theory with what I know is that its because of the dictator, Assad, and his connections with the Muslim Brotherhood. With how strict and psychopathic the radical Islamics are, it doesn't really surprise me. But Mr. Fisher (the author of the article) believes that the reason for the mass killings can't be pinned onto one thing. Syria has been a time bomb waiting to go off for decades and something about the protests in 2011 set it off. There is no arguing that the Syrian government overreacted to these protests but even then Assad learned this act of punishment from his father. 

One of the theories Mr. Fisher addresses to why Syria spiraled so quickly was because of the Fareed Zakaria case, where the CNN anchor recorded a video for a blogger explaining why he feels the US should NOT get involved in Syria's domestic problems. The other theory is just that the Assad regime was not sustainable and it was just on its downfall. 

Now for more recent events, I don't think Obama should be involved in Syria's problem. I'm sure we will have issues with getting natural resources in that area (assuming we get any from over there) but I would rather pay more for gas than piss off the Syrian's and radical Islamics. I'm sure there are so many more reasons that go too in-depth and are too complicated for me to understand but that's my two cents on Syria.

Post 4

Overall, there wasn't anything bad about this book. Goldwater kept it somewhat interesting and it seemed like everything he said had a reason and that he was not rambling. On a bad note, the book was definitely written for an audience that is very familiar with politics. There was very little explaining of many terms in the book. I'm so ignorant to much of government and politics. I don't understand a lot of it and it takes me a while to understand unless I'm personally invested in something. If I were to have this assignment after taking the government course, I feel like I would understand everything better, and that I could actually form an opinion on a lot of things. However, since I haven't taken the course, a lot the things I may say in the previous blog posts may seem quite interesting and may make you turn your head a bit. But hey, I'm trying at least.

My father in an avid reader and he's very active in politics. He's read a bunch of these Bill O'Reilly books and a book written by a really conservative woman who is very recognizable on Fox News. I told he should read the book because he's such a die-hard conservative and I think even him would learn something new about it. The only thing I think he would change about the book is more degrading of liberals. (For future reference, if you were to ever meet my father, don't tell him you're a liberal if you are. He will probably judge you and probably start an argument. Not trying to talk bad about him but that's just how he was born and raised. It's funny as his son to stir him up whenever Obama is on the news to cheer for him. How red he turns is hilarious.) 

Seeing as my knowledge of politics is small, this book helped increase it. It probably would have helped so much more if I had taken the government course before hand. I might have to go back and read after this semester and see if I comprehend it any better. However, knowing me I'll probably never see this book again, unless my dad starts reading it. 

All I want to say is that the last time I went to the doctor the pocket fee was $50 more than the time before even when I went for the same reason. 

THANKS OBAMA. 

Post 3

Some of important topics Mr. Goldwater discussed are freedom for labor and taxes and spending

He says, "We have seen that unions perform their natural function when three conditions are observed: association with the union is voluntary; the union confines its activities to collective bargaining; the bargaining is conducted with the employer of the workers concerned" (Goldwater 31). With that being said, one could conclude that Goldwater is pro-union. He believes that we should restore unions to their proper role in society. Due to ignorance of politics and specifically unions, I cannot form an educated opinion about them. However, the idea of a union is mixed for me. I think it's great that people feel they should get a better pay or more rights in their labor group but even so, I feel like a lot of them don't even understand what it means to run a company or business. I certainly don't but I can infer and say that well organized business has money being spent left and right on necessities and that there is a budget that unfortunately for the workers, probably doesn't have much going toward their salaries. But even then, once a business has invested itself into something, the cost to keep it stabilized is increased. Increasing the pay rate for the workers would only cause financial problems in the long run. 

Goldwater believes that "government has a right to claim an equal percentage of each man's wealth, and no more" (Goldwater 41). I agree with that statement. I believe in a fair rate across the board for every man. I believe that's justice and anything else would cause many conflicts in the country (as if there aren't any). He also believes that "the only way to curtail spending substantially, is to eliminate the programs on which excess spending is consume" (Goldwater 44). I agree with his statement here but to completely eliminate every program they excess spend on seems extremely unrealistic. A lot of times the government doesn't acknowledge responsibility when spending that money. For example, he says, "as long as federal government acknowledges responsibility for education, for examples, the amount of federal aid is bound to increase, at the very least, in direct proportion to the cost of supporting the nation's schools" (Goldwater 44)

How can our economy continue functioning under uneven taxation without a lower class fading out?

Post 2

So, the beginning of book talked about the conscience of a conservative, the perils of power, state's rights, and civil rights. 

To start off Goldwater discusses the difference between conservatism and liberalism. He says liberals are interested in the people's well beings while conservatives try and preserve their economic status. He says "It is Conservatism that puts material things in their proper place - that has a structured view of the human being and of human society, in which economics plays only a subsidiary role" (Goldwater 5). He also says "Conservatism looks upon the enhancement of man's spiritual nature as the primary concern in politics. Liberals on the other hand regard their satisfaction of economic wants as the dominant mission of society" (Goldwater 6). So what I gathered is that Conservatism is all about achieving as much individual freedom while keeping social order.

Goldwater then later discusses the problems with power. For example, he claims that government is the primary instrument in preventing man's liberty. But I thought we were a democracy? Doesn't that mean that everything is the people's decisions? In that case, the government shouldn't be the blame. Unless of course we call ourselves a democracy when were actually a republic. 

Goldwater believes that the Constitution should be obeyed word for word. That everything written in it was written for a purpose and we should abide by it. If we were to substitute our intentions with the framers of the Constitution, we would be endorsing a rule of men, not laws (Goldwater 23). Now I agree with Goldwater that we should follow the intentions embedded in the Constitution. Our Founding Fathers are the people who created and shaped our government and to not abide their intentions is like disobeying your parents, which eventually creates conflict and consequences. 

After knowing all this, can Americans keep the country going based on its core principles?

Post 1

The book I chose is called The Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater. Mr. Goldwater was born in 1909 in Phoenix, Arizona. He graduated Staunton Military Academy then attended the University of Arizona for a year. He is a former US Senator in Arizona, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, and Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.  He also has high rankings in the military. In the 1964 election, he was the Republican nominee but lost to Lyndon Johnson. 

I chose this book because I really have no knowledge of government and politics. My father on the other hand is a die-hard republican. He says politics is his passion in life and will be involved in it for the rest of his life. This book is the only thing me and my dad thought looked interesting. My father was familiar with Goldwater since he grew up in the 60s. 

I expect to learn something about conservatism and how the Republican Party works. The couple elections, everything about them just flew past my head. I don't understand politics, I never have and honestly, I never liked it anyway. But regardless, I'm hoping this book helps me understand a little more.  

Now, I'm expecting this book to be extremely biased toward Republicans and maybe Libertarians seeing as Goldwater was a big factor in starting the libertarian movement and based on the books title.