1. A True Distraction Done By Donald Trump

>>Link To The Video<<

It is a common opinion of the public today, that as a country, America has some serious issues to take care of. It is true and Donald Trump, a famous business man, TV personality, and author also agrees. The thing is, I believe he is the biggest distraction to the public currently by giving too many unnecessary yet outrageous reasons to the main media to cover about his rambles.
First of all, Donald Trump is a celebrity who is very well known but at the same time, his statements are very useless to keep the public informed. Only information that Trump allows the public to know is that he is a horrible joke of the politics today.
In the presented clip, Trump constantly states that he is proud of making Obama show his birth certificate. Yet, he also says that we have no time for this and hopes that this topic of the president's birth certificate calms down. But everyone knows that Trump is the one who caused this commotion, contributing help to republicans who are raising the questions about the birth certificate among public. At the end, with all that considered, Trump's statement became very unreasonable and weak. His statements clearly did not worth other's time and it is distracting the public and the president himself.
Currently, Donald Trump has no chance at the election at all and all he is doing is a clown show while the circus tent is on fire.
I really hope the main media stops enlarging this problem and stops giving Trump the attention his ego craves for. Obama presented his long term birth certificate so he can end all this silly commotion, not to extend the problems.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas

During 1950's the practice of segregation have invaded the public life of Americans and even regarding education. The segregation was legally allowed under the doctrine of "equal but separate."
Not everything changed after the decision of Brown v. Board of Education, but the way schools were run in the South changed. I believe if a society want to change in the long run, education must change and I believe this court case was almost as liberating as the Thirteen Amendment. This was a major step to rejecting discrimination and Plessy v. Ferguson ruling and accepting public equality.

Miller v. California

 Marvin Miller, sent five unsolicited brochures by mail to a restaurant which advertised four adult book titles and an adult movie. The material included sexual languages, photographs and art work of men and women in a sexual activity. The manager of the restaurant and his mother complained to the police, and Miller was convicted of violating a California statute which prohibited the distribution of obscene and inappropriate material.
Miller claimed that California's definition of obscenity conflicted the definition of obscenity of the U.S. Supreme Court and that he should be allowed to spread adult materials, because it is allowed by the first Amendment of freedom of speech. He believed that his conviction should be overturned.

The court ruled that adult materials did not apply to the First Amendment. The court sampled the test for obscenity decided in Roth v. United States and Memoirs v. Massachusetts.

The court stated that one must apply contemporary community standards, appeal to the prurient interest, apply the state law and must have serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

This decision stated that material can be judged by the public not the presenter only and this case gave a new detail to the first amendment. I think the ruling was fair because adult or offensive materials can be harmful to the society, causing conflicts.

This decision does not respect every single freedom but it respects the majority and the public.

Plessy v. Ferguson

 On June 7 of 1892, a 30 year old Homer Plessy was jailed for sitting in the white car of the East Louisiana Railroad as one-eighths black and seven-eighths white person. Under the Louisiana law, Plessy was considered  colored and was forced by law to sit in the colored section of the car.
He went to the court and argued that the Separate Car Act was a violation of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. The thirteenth abolished the slavery and fourteenth which granted citizen ships for the freed slaves.
 The lawyer of the case, John Howard Ferguson was the lawyer who declared the Separate Car Act. This time, he ruled that the state could choose to regulate the railroad companies that operated within Louisiana only. He found Plessy guilty of refusing to leave the white car, then he appealed to the Supreme Court. However, he was found guilty once again because the fourteenth amendment was to give full rights to both white and black races but not to abolish the distinction of two races and the previous law was not established to discriminate either race. I personally found that statement aggravating but funny at the same time. It sounds so hypocritical and ironic. How can a distinction of color of skin can not be discriminating? How can separating them give people equality? Segregation clearly was a continuing discrimination in America.
These links presents summary and more about this case: infoplease, bgsu.edu

The decision allowed segregation as long as they were equal. The doctrine of "separate but equal" took over the public life of Americans in restaurants, theaters, restrooms, and public schools.
However, in 1954, the Brown v. Board of Education decision will strike down the "separate but equal" doctrine.

United States v. Nixon

Watergate scandal was a great national shame. In June of 1972,  five burglars were arrested inside the Democratic National Committee's headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington D.C. It appeared that the five men worked either directly or indirectly for the committee for re-election of president Nixon. However, the president and his campaign leaders denied their connection with the incident, although in 1973, it became clear in the investigation that the top members of Nixon administration were definitely involved. They were involved in a cover-up of the break in and several other illegal actions. Also, it appeared that Nixon installed a taping system which automatically recorded his conversation with his advisers.
A prosecutor demanded to present the tape at the court, but Nixon refused to release them, saying that they were protected under executive privilege. He eventually released some of the tapes after some of the portions were erased. Another prosecutor asked the Supreme Court to compel Nixon to release all of the tapes.

The court ruled unanimously that the president must surrender the tapes. I think that the decision is very fair, considering that the executive branch is a separate branch from the judicial branch. There for, the president has no power over the court and is not an exception from the law.
In the fifth amendment, it says that no person shall be deprived of liberty without due process and the sixth amendment states that every defendant in a criminal trial has the right to be confronted with the witness against him and to have compulsory process for obtaining witness in his favor. The president has no right to turn these away despite his power.
These links present the case in a very simple way: infoplease, 4lawschool

This case is incredible because it showed the clear separation of the executive branch and the judicial branch. Despite the fact that the president is the head of the country, Nixon could not get away from what he did, being a dishonest leader of a country like America. Nixon became the first president in the United States' history to resign from the presidency. Nixon did so to avoid impeachment and conviction of the Senate.
Despite his great foreign policies and relationships, Richard Nixon will be remembered for something else, the most dishonest president of America.

Roe v. Wade, a change of lives.

This is a video that is shown in our government class. This case is not only about whether a fetus' faith is controlled or not, but in the other hand, a woman's right. As a woman myself, I would say that the ruling of the case is rather a very essential to the modern society. The ruling changed the law of the toughest law in the nation regarding abortion of a woman. The striking point is that even if the woman was raped or was a victim of incest, she could not get an abortion in Texas.On January 22th, 1973, abortion was legalized in Texas, allowing women to get abortion during the first three months of their pregnancy.
I believe this was a fair because ever since the law was made, I believe big numbers of women got a second chance after their mistake and living better life. Also, many of the rape and incest victims were now allowed to end unwanted pregnancy caused by a crime. It appears from this link that since 1973 when this law was established, there has been about 39 million abortions since then. Who will take care of all these children? The unprepared parents? Can that addition to the population really be safe to the society? It is hard to admit but in a realistic point of view, I can not help but to say that the legalization of abortion benefited the society as a whole. To add more, a research presented by John Donohue and Steven Levitt shows that the legalization of abortion reduced the crime rate and they said that the unwanted babies lead to crimes in future.

The Out Come of the Show

today, I want to talk about the turn out of the art show, Inelegant Expression. The show me and fellow artists and musicians worked on for so many days; and how can I forget the parents who spend around 400 dollars for the show by renting tents and helping us print the art works. After two days of showing, we succeed to earn about $1000 for Japan. It was an unbelievable outcome for all of us. I was happy to see that everyone's hard work payed off.

To summarize the days of the shows, first, right after school on the Friday before, I started working. Ted, Alex and I went around our houses picking up materials and art works and then went to FedEx to print. For 6 hours, we were in FedEx printing and cutting papers. By the end of the day, around 12 o' clock, we were exhausted and grumpy. I did not forget to hang the "No Parking" sign at the gallery late at night.
I came home and got 4 hours of sleep and then started working again around six in the morning. I printed out the information tags for the art works and the artists which is essential for art shows what so ever. My printer kept messing up so it took me a while to fix everything up. Ted came over around eight to help me put the art works on the ready-to-go panel together. While my mom made some coffee for two of us, we hustled and Ted made a mistake by putting Laurel's abstract work up side down. After panicking a bit, I just put it the right way. After putting the art work on, as I hate to say, I started to order around Ted and my father to move the things into the car while I made sure everything was set and ready to go. That was stressful minutes since I never ordered people around so much before. I felt horrible despite the fact that I was the "director."

Ted and I drove down to the gallery and met up with other project members and parents. We had no time to waste; everyone started to move things out of their vehicles and started to set everything up. The tents were the big problem. They were big and no one was used to setting up the type of tents we had. So it took us a while to set it up and we were 20 minutes late from starting the show which was a big bummer to me. In the morning, not many people went by. I was starting to get worried. "What if no one comes?" "What if this show becomes a joke?" Many questions and paranoia appeared in my mind. However, around lunch time, people started to show up before or after they had their meal at Chow's which was right across the street from us. That is when we started to earn a lot of money. Baked goods were selling fast and musicians were getting a lot of tips in their jar. Many intrigued people showed up and walked slowly by the art tent. We sold out of our prints really fast so we had to write down customer's name and address in order to send it to them later after the show.
During this busy hours, I sold my painting to a gentleman for $100 despite the fact that it was not on sale. The thing is, he really liked the painting and really wanted to have it. So we shook hands and I said, "For Japan."
After our first day of the show, I went on and started printing more art works that we needed, and got ready for the next day. Which was not as hectic as the day before since all of us were not so unfamiliar with dealing with customers.

The second day was all about seeing new opportunities as many impressed adults came with a lot of interest in us. One gentlemen, who was in charge of the summer artist market wanted to know if we were interested in having our own booth at the market. He gave us his business card and all of us are definitely considering the event. Also, an elderly lady came by and asked me if she can buy my painting of the moon, "Unexplainable Anxieties." She wanted to know the original price and wanted me to paint her portrait which was a great honor to me. I never got an offer for a commission before so I was happily shocked.  I also met up with my third space mentor Alan Chin to talk about how the show is going in general. He showed us support and had few good conversation with all the kids which went very well.

By the end of the day, we could not believe the amount of money we managed to collect. Everybody was proud of each other and to all of us, it was a great event of our lives. Doing something on our own like this to help a foreign country in a great need, I think it is the most humble thing I have ever done.
This show changed the way I think of my passion. Now, I want to use my passion for art not just for living but for other people; To save and help people around the world. I am definitely looking out for more opportunities to have more shows like this, where young artists can show their best works and take chances.
I would say the show was a greater success than any one could have imagined, and I would love to do it again.

Another Earthquake That Changed The World

Part I: A modern economic super power, Japan's future was about to be changed at a greater scale than any one could imagine. March 11^th of 2011, an earthquake measured 9.0 struck the Pacific Ocean, generating a massive tsunami which struck the northeastern prefectures of Iwate, Fukushima and Miyagi, wiping the entire area. The earthquake was so powerful that it even moved the island of Japan by eight feet and shifted the Earth's axis by 4 inches. The earthquake not only triggered big fires but left five million homes lacking source of electricity and one million homes with no water. There are more than 5,0000 houses destroyed. Nearly every businesses and jobs in the area are destroyed, school is shutdown and the future of all the family of this area is uncertain. Evacuee and homeless shelters are running out of space, clothes, food, water, and more needs for the big masses of people who are in great need of help. The death toll is believed to be about 25,000 while about 14,000 people are still missing; however the numbers are changing constantly with people racing to find survivors. Even after the major earthquake, there were hundreds of aftershock with a magnitude larger than 6.0 or even 7.0, causing non-stopping fear to the people. On top of this great burden, Japan is also facing a new danger of damaged nuclear power plant. Out of six nuclear power reactors, at Japan's Fukushima plant complex, was made to with stand earthquake of 8.2 magnitude, not enough to stand against the earthquake which disabled three of the reactors' backup cooling system. The disability of the reactor caused explosion after another. The workers stayed at the plant to try reducing the damage risking their own lives. Nearby residents were ordered to evacuate and even residents in Tokyo were told to evacuate the area. Japan relied on nuclear power for source of electricity generation, although the people are still sensitive to the nuclear hazard issue due to the atomic bombing in World War II. It is not a surprise that the Japanese Prime Minister, Naoto Kan has called this national obstacle, the country's “Worst Crisis” since World War II. The Japanese citizens across the nation is not only concerned but enraged at the government especially regarding the radiation danger. Majority of the citizens believe the Japanese government is not revealing enough information about this nuclear threat to the people. In Tokyo, government was sending out mixed messages saying that the amount of radiation is not likely to be harmful but to stay inside as much as possible. Many people are fleeing out of Tokyo, mainly women and children to avoid the chaos, believing the the government is only drip-feeding selective information; to them, because of the fear of radiation, even breathing air was suspicious. In other hand, people are trying to reduce chaos among the common people as much as possible since Japan is a very earthquake pron country and people are educated to stay calm together.

Part II: Right as the disaster happened, U.S reached out to help. President Obama said he was “heartbroken” and pledged that the U.S. will do everything they can to help Japan. As part of the aid, U.S. military force mobilized to help with searching and rescuing the survivors, and general recovery. U.S. Navy has dispatched three aircraft carriers to Japan and American charities' relief teams are on the way. After all, Japan is a key ally of U.S. in Asia and U.S. do have military bases in Japan. Meanwhile, many American citizens are also in fear worried about the same possible scenario that could happen in main land. First, the damage in Santa Cruz and Hawaii showed that this is not just another country's problem, but global. As an earthquake pron state, there is an increasing fear in Californian of the same degree of earthquake and tsunami. Americans are staring to ask: “Are we ready for this type of disaster that even damaged one of the leading, high technological country like Japan?” Not only that, the nuclear plant emergency have raised many questions about America's use of nuclear power. Obama administration have been trying to reassure the public that the U.S. Nuclear plants are safe and there is no harm of radiation coming from Japan's disabled nuclear plant. The disaster in Japan gave new powerful ammunition to the critics of Obama and his nuclear power project. There are about 100 commercial nuclear reactors in the U.S. and quarter of them are the same type as those in Fukushima. Also, some of the reactors including two in California are vulnerable to both earthquakes and tsunamis which raised many concerns regarding safety even among experts. However the administration have stated that they are trying to speed constructing the nuclear power facilities for source of alternative energy other than carbon dioxide and gases. The White House spokesman Jay Carney have assured that the administration will incorporate lessons from the tragedy in Japan. Meanwhile, many businesses are in a dilemma as majority of manufactures in Japan are shut down; businesses such as technology and automobile do rely on parts from Japan. Also, the damaged manufacturing of automobile is affecting the American automobile industry at a great deal as many Americans drive Japanese cars such as Honda and Toyota. This is the proof that America is interrelated with Japan in many different ways.

Part III: President Obama have stated: “The United States stands ready to help the Japanese people in this time of great trial.” He is encouraging his citizens to help Japan in a subtle way during this recession. His aid by military and more was enough and I just hope that it is consistent. 

Through out the year in my economic and government class, there is a clear reason why I enjoyed the class everyday; that is because Mr. McAlister did not forget to remind us what is going on around the world and what is influencing our economy and our own government. By this way, I learned the fact that any thing that happens on earth will sooner or later, will affect the whole planet including United States. No one is alone in this biosphere and that is why the Inelegant Expression crew and I did not hesitate to choose International Red Cross as our choice of charity, one of the leading organization for helping Japan. During this kind of recession, I do not think there is a lot to be done by Americans for Japan. However, the government must keep encouraging people to help our ally and consider Japan as our big lesson; it is a lesson that teaches the whole world: even if a country is an advanced with a strict building codes, fast warning systems and 8,800 miles of seawalls and breakwaters as preparation for natural disaster, at the end, there is a limit; that is why we must prepare even more and make sure the possible future damage is reduced. At first, community service was just another burden to the crew and I. We organized a non-profit student art show so we can get graded for school; there were no strong passion involved yet. However, right when we were deciding where to donate our money to, the disaster hit Japan. Seeing horrifying images of waves of debris with houses on fire and a fireman crying looked almost alien to us. As kids who mostly grew up in a peaceful suburbia, it was hard to imagine what kind of pain and calamity the Japanese people are going through half way across earth. By then, the project was not another school related work, it was a duty to all of us as another human beings living in the same world. Another factor that moved me through out the project is the people who were so willing to help Japan through us by giving us extra donation. Many visitors at the show have told us how scared and sad they are at the same time. Some lady even said “That could be us any day.” At the end of the two day show, we earned about $1000 for Japan and we are set on sending exactly $1000 check to the Red Cross, the leading charity that took the earliest action to help Japan. After the show, many students including me felt that that was one of the most fulfilling thing we ever did in our lives so far and I definitely want to do more with my passion for art to help people around the world. It is a very humble idea to use your passion for something that is so meaningful. I think Japan has hope despite this darkness. I know Japan will re-build the country as if this disaster never happened. Just within two generations of World War II, Japanese reconstructed their country from a mess to a dynamic and innovative Asian leader of the world. I believe if they have done it before, they can do it again. I hope that the Japanese people find peace in their mind during this world wide chaos.

Citation:

"Disaster Alert: Earthquake in Japan, Tsunami Warnings." American Red Cross Disaster Newsroom. 11 Mar. 2011. Web. 03 Apr. 2011. <http://newsroom.redcross.org/2011/03/11/disaster-alert-earthquake-in-japan-tsunami-warnings/>.

"Focus On: Japan's Earthquake and Nuclear Crisis (Research Feature)." World News Digest. Facts On File News Services, Mar. 2011. Web. 10 Apr. 2011. <http://www.2facts.com/article/r00151>.

"Editorial Opinion: Record Earthquake Strikes Northern Japan, Triggering Devastating Tsunami; Struggle to Contain Radiation at Damaged Nuclear Power Plant." World News Digest. Facts On File News Services, n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2011. <http://www.2facts.com/article/e00518>.

"Record Earthquake Strikes Northern Japan, Triggering Devastating Tsunami; Struggle to Contain Radiation at Damaged Nuclear Power Plant." Facts On File World News Digest: n. pag. World News Digest. Facts On File News Services, 17 Mar. 2011. Web. 10 Apr. 2011. <http://www.2facts.com/article/2011540241>.

Tapper, Jake, and Luis Martinez. "Obama Administration Reacts to Japanese Earthquake; Braces for Pacific Tsunami." Political Punch. ABC News, 11 Mar. 2011. Web. 10 Apr. 2011. <http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2011/03/-obama-administration-reacts-to-japanese-earthquake-braces-for-pacific-tsunami.html>.