Our Privacy is important!

One of my classmates wrote a post called “Privacy...what'sthat?” and it talks about a bill HB1608 that hopefully will set stronger restrictions whenever police want to access our cellphones, texts, Facebook, etc. I kind of disagree when she’s saying that police should access our cellphones but just if they have a warrant. I think everyone should have their own privacy with or without a warrant, I don’t have anything to hide from police but I think we should respect everybody’s privacy. It would be different if police thinks somebody is suspicious and they want to investigate, other than that, I say no to police accessing our privacy. I understand, we can’t do anything and maybe our opinion doesn't even matter but like my classmate said, where’s our privacy? Privacy…..what’s that?

Mexico right now is full of crimes and corrupts; over there literally everybody could have access to your phone, texts, Facebook, etc. One of my uncle’s friends was talking to somebody from his family, they were talking about how bad Mexico is right now and a lot more things; within a week somebody came to his house and yelled at him and put a gun in his head saying that that was the last time he talks about how bad Mexico is and a bunch of other things with somebody, that he was going to be monitored and they were going to have access to his cellphone to see what calls he would make and what was he going to talk about. 

There's not a sickness that Tobacco can cure!

Is it possible to restrict smoking tobacco to the whole nation? It is a very hard problem to solve isn’t it? As we all know, smoking tobacco is harmful to your health and so far I haven’t heard a person say that tobacco might help you be cured of something. It makes it harder to make society quit smoking tobacco because now Texas wants or they’re thinking to legalize marihuana.

For the first time black and white smoking tobacco advertisements started on 1789-1870, then right after the color ones came on 1870-1900. Later, modern advertising was created with the innovative techniques used in tobacco advertising beginning in the 1920s. The campaigns begun on 1950-1960, cigarette brands frequently sponsored television shows.

If it were in my hands, I will definitely restrict tobacco use because it is not making anything change or not helping anybody in a good way but just damaging their health. Like I said at the beginning, this might take a long time but if our government or our state laws would make this case really strict so that people quit smoking then there would be a change even if we like it or not.

There’s so many different ways so that society with time can learn and adapt to a “new” law, for example, if somebody sees you smoking in your house where there’s kids living with you or you’re surrounded by them, they can call the police and they can arrest you for not obeying the law. You could even go to jail if you don't obey and they can take away your kids.  Another one is completely ban cigarettes vending machines in the whole world. Restricting tobacco use almost everywhere and maintain those places secure. Keep a record of all the people that smoke or start to smoke, they have to stop smoking for certain amount of time, if they do not even touch the cigarette at the end they would get a reward or something that would benefit them, just like the ALL STATE car insurance, if you don’t get into an accident for six months they will reward you. Last idea I have is that people would be required to take a class/lesson kind of thing about quitting tobacco smoking for instance before they would go get a drivers license or just anything related to the government. At the end they would get an exam and see if they took the lesson seriously, if they fail then they don’t get the drivers license even if they pass they driving test.

We will have to work really hard on this one. 

Sex Education Materials

 On Tuesday, April 2, 2013 one of my classmates posted an article called “Unplanned Parenthood” and it talks about a bill that “prohibits school districts from using sex education materials that are provided by any organization that are affiliated with abortion providers.” Parents have the right to review this material and also to withdraw their children “from participating in sex education if they so choose to.” These courses will, in my opinion help students to really appreciate what “building a family” is and not just going around and have kids like if it was a game. Parents can also take classes to learn how to talk with their children about this “awkward conversation.”

“Hopefully in the next twenty years we will see a continual decline in pregnancies among teens with the help of programs like sex education and Planned Parenthood. It is clear that these programs do not encourage sex, but give teens education and options on how to prevent unwanted pregnancies.” I agree with my classmate, I hope teens open their eyes and see the reality, because not all of them are going to take this as something “serious” some of them just don’t care, and that’s the problem. Parents should totally agree with schools so that students can be thought these courses because if they refuse to talk to them about sex then who else will do it?

We shouldn't support it!

We shouldn’t support legalizing guns, don’t we understand that by legalizing guns is just going to create more crimes and violence? I understand some people want this new plan to happen just so that we can defend ourselves from crimes but what’s the point if we will be part of that violent scenario as well. Crimes will always exist there’s not a date or time that we can avoid them, having a gun with us will maybe makes us experience something that many of us maybe will regret doing.

I think legalizing guns will only cause more and more problems; our kids will learn bad habits growing up and I say bad habits because that’s how I see legalizing a gun, as a bad “habit.” I personally don’t feel capable and/or prepare to be carrying a gun with me all the time; many people are used to having a gun but it might be for a different reason perhaps hunting. I know many of people will agree and support gun legalizing because they might think that, not just because having a gun means that they will kill somebody for self defense but you never know what will happen, plus if many of those people think that way, what’s the point of having to carry a gun with you if you will maybe freeze and do nothing to defend yourself.

I think we’re making such a big deal with all of this gun legalizing, Texas doesn’t have that much crimes yet, I know we shouldn’t wait for them to occur so that we can do something about it but, look at Mexico, its horrible over there and not even like that with that much violence people want to have a gun.

One more thing, I think that most of the time violence/problems/confrontations will only occur if you’re doing something wrong. If you’re acting bad then bad things will happen to you.

Guns or NO Guns?

A blog by Robbie Cooper posted on March 18, 2013 called: Texas Lege: Update on HB-700 (Open-Carry) talks about the support of gun carrying, he tweets inviting people to support this new plan as well. Cooper really wants this plan to happen because “Texas is one of only 6 states without some form of Open Carry. That needs to change this session.”

This blog says, “in Texas there are two different signs that legally restrict a concealed handgun license holder from carrying into a place of business. They are a 30.06 sign, and a 51% sign. A 30.06 sign is a sign that a business owner can post to restrict a CHL holder from entering the business with a concealed handgun. The sign must contain the exact words required by Section 30.06 in both English and Spanish, be placed in an area visible to the public, and have 1″ lettering or it will not be considered a legally-binding 30.06 sign. “Gunbuster” signs, or signs with a red slash through a gun, are not considered valid 30.06 postings.”

The author is very clear about his point but I don’t agree with him. I understand that there’s a lot of crimes and violence going on but I just don’t think is right to have a gun with us at all. What will our kids say? They will be growing up knowing that we have to have a gun with us at all time. Maybe they will not understand why we have it even if we try to explain it to them. I just don’t like this new plan, its so unreal trying to make this legal due to crimes and violence. I don’t think carrying a gun will protect us instead it will make us seem bad and it will look like we’re in war; that’s just the way I see it, some will not agree and some will. 

Investing more on mental health!

 

On Monday, Feb. 18, 2013 Austin American Statesman posted an article titled “Raymond: Invest more in mental health.” It talks about the massive amount of murders in Texas; the author is giving two important examples that happened not too long ago; “Aug. 1, Charles Whiteman had climbed the University of Texas’ iconic tower and set his rifle’s sights on 46 innocent victims, killing 14 after murdered his wife and mother “and “Adam Lanza, who slaughtered 20 innocent children in Newtown, Conn., just two months ago.”

The author says if people would ask him what he thinks about all of this murders going on he would say that it surely involves some sort of mental illness or treatable condition. He says that “Texas’ budget is not in the financial bind it was two years ago” so they can and must do more to come up with something more beneficial in this critical area. Raymond want Texas to take care of our children, it is not okay to let”crazy” people go into the schools and just kill them.

The author seems to be very serious and he really wants our state to spend more of their money in mental health. I totally agree with him because every day we’re seeing more and more deaths around Texas. The local news just shows crimes and violence, video games are full of guns, blood and they’re about killing people. Our children are growing up so fast and the population is getting bigger and bigger in our state but, what’s the point if they’re surrounded by things they’re not supposed to know or see at their age.

The article does mention an interesting point but not in detail, every single person should do a mental check up regularly and doctors should definitely keep a record, if they find something different on someone they should arrange a treatment session, that way we can avoid crimes and murders.

Now in days, a lot of states react late, they want to fix things once the crimes had been made.

Single-sex school in Texas?

An article called "Plan for single sex schools in East Austin is another pricey experiment" was posted on Feb. 2, 2013 and talked about a plan for single-sex schools just like the title says. Many of the Austin trustees voted to approve this plan, and many parents are not quite sure about this plan, "we all appreciate good intensions, as well as the trustees' desire to offer parents more choices, but students at those academically troubled schools deserve more than expensive experiments."

Five of nine trustees voted for single-sex schools at Pearce and Garcia, one of them was Bradley, whose district includes Pearce and Garcia middle schools. Results of the Academic development of Texas shows that grades 3rd, 4th and 5th scored a high score on the Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness exams, 6th, 7th and 8th did a good job in the rate of STAAR exams in the math portion but not on the other subjects, in the other hand, "Pearce and Garcia middle schools have been rated academically unacceptable by the state in three of the past four years. according to records."

I think Bradley wants to approve with this plan because he has no other choice, Pearce and Garcia are not doing good academically at all so there's no other way to solve this problem but to approve the plan for a single sex-school. I'm not really sure how it will help reaching the Texas academic goal though. I think this article is worth reading because you can see that this plan is not well developed.

This "new" plan was actually more of a "vote of good intensions than a vote based on solid research", however, if this plan is approved, the schools are scheduled to open in the 2014-15 school year.