1. What do the fact checkers at the New Republic do when they cannot find the information to verify?
They ask the reporter if they have any undisclosed source contact information.
2. How does Charles Lane feel about Glass once he discovers he is lying?
He does not respect him.
3. How does Glass gain the sympathy of his fellow journalists at the New Republic?
He has friendships with several of his co-workers. He is meek, and acts as if he was duped, or acting out of all the pressure being put on him, instead of outright lying.
4. How does Glass dodge the truth again once he realizes he has been caught by Forbes!
He has his brother pose as people on voicemails, and makes up the Jukt Micronics website.
5. What excuse does Glass give Lane for lying?
The pressure.
6. What is the argument for not firing Glass from the New Republic?
That others will quit.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Editorial Final Draft
Penalty-enhancement hate crime statutes are laws that give extra punishment to crimes in which a perpetrator targets a victim because of their membership in a certain social group. Hate crimes laws are ineffective, impractical, discriminatory, and unconstitutional.
First, it is important to understand that hate crime laws have been essentially ineffective. Although hate crime laws have been in effect for over twenty years, an FBI report shows that hate crimes as currently defined have gone up by 7.8 percent since 2006, and the Department of Justice reports roughly the enormous number of 190,000 hate crimes a year (Kopel 1).
Second, hate crime laws are overly impractical for the criminal justice system, which in turn burdens the citizenry by clogging up needed legal resources. James B. Jacobs, Professor of Law at the NYU School of Law among other titles, and Kimberly Potter, a Senior Research Fellow at NYU’s Center for Research in Crime and Justice, have together written a book called Hate Crimes: Criminal Law and Identity Politics that provides a strong case against hate crime laws. One of the authors’ arguments is that “the concept of hate crime is loaded with ambiguity because of the difficulty of determining (1) what is meant by prejudice; (2) which crimes qualify for inclusion under the hate crime umbrella; (3) which crimes, when attributable to prejudice, become hate crimes; and (4) how strong the causal link must be between the perpetrator’s prejudice and the perpetrator’s criminal conduct” (Jacobs and Potter 11). Jacobs and Potter further argue that practically everyone is prejudiced to some extent, so any crime by one member of a group against another might be a hate crime, and thus it would be fair to investigate it as such (Jacobs and Potter 16).
Third, even if hate crime laws succeeded in their goals, they are themselves discriminatory. Again, hate crime laws give extra punishment to crimes wherein a person is targeted because of their membership in a certain social group. However, the only social groups protected by most hate crime laws are based on race, religion, ethnicity, and nationality (“Hate crime laws in the United States” 1). 2005 statistics from the Williams Institute Court Law show that homosexuals are experiencing just as much hate as African Americans and Jews, but yet they are just one of the groups not protected by some hate crime laws (Kopel 2). According to Jacobs and Potter, “in 1994, women reported approximately 500,000 rapes and sexual assaults, almost 500,000 robberies and 3.8 million assaults. The perpetrator was male in the vast majority of these cases”, making crimes against women “the most obvious candidate for recognition as hate crime” (Jacobs and Potter 19-20). Crimes against women, however, are not recognized as hate crime by some laws. This is the case with other social groups that apparently aren’t considered important enough to be considered victims of hate (Kopel 2). David Kopel, Director of Research for the Independence Institute, a public policy research organization in Golden, Colorado, concludes that hate crimes are in themselves a form of discrimination. There is long-standing precedent, originating in the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, wherein this kind of discrimination is clearly illegal. The equal protection clause reads: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws” (“The United States Constitution”).
Fourth, while hate crime laws probably violate the Fourteenth Amendment, they are most definitely unconstitutional in that they violate the First Amendment. All hate crime laws do is give higher punishment to crimes that would be punished already, just because they’re considered hateful. Thus, hate crime laws go beyond punishing the act to punishing the attitude or belief of the perpetrator, which is protected by the First Amendment’s guarantee of free expression. The First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” (“The United…”). The First Amendment has been interpreted to give people the freedom of thought or expression. The US Supreme Court unanimously found that hate crime laws which punish prejudice-motivated speech conflict with freedom of thought because they isolated certain words based on their content or viewpoint (“Hate crime”). Jewish Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis sums it up well: “If there is any principle in the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought--not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought we hate.” Go out and lobby you representatives to abolish hate crime laws today.
First, it is important to understand that hate crime laws have been essentially ineffective. Although hate crime laws have been in effect for over twenty years, an FBI report shows that hate crimes as currently defined have gone up by 7.8 percent since 2006, and the Department of Justice reports roughly the enormous number of 190,000 hate crimes a year (Kopel 1).
Second, hate crime laws are overly impractical for the criminal justice system, which in turn burdens the citizenry by clogging up needed legal resources. James B. Jacobs, Professor of Law at the NYU School of Law among other titles, and Kimberly Potter, a Senior Research Fellow at NYU’s Center for Research in Crime and Justice, have together written a book called Hate Crimes: Criminal Law and Identity Politics that provides a strong case against hate crime laws. One of the authors’ arguments is that “the concept of hate crime is loaded with ambiguity because of the difficulty of determining (1) what is meant by prejudice; (2) which crimes qualify for inclusion under the hate crime umbrella; (3) which crimes, when attributable to prejudice, become hate crimes; and (4) how strong the causal link must be between the perpetrator’s prejudice and the perpetrator’s criminal conduct” (Jacobs and Potter 11). Jacobs and Potter further argue that practically everyone is prejudiced to some extent, so any crime by one member of a group against another might be a hate crime, and thus it would be fair to investigate it as such (Jacobs and Potter 16).
Third, even if hate crime laws succeeded in their goals, they are themselves discriminatory. Again, hate crime laws give extra punishment to crimes wherein a person is targeted because of their membership in a certain social group. However, the only social groups protected by most hate crime laws are based on race, religion, ethnicity, and nationality (“Hate crime laws in the United States” 1). 2005 statistics from the Williams Institute Court Law show that homosexuals are experiencing just as much hate as African Americans and Jews, but yet they are just one of the groups not protected by some hate crime laws (Kopel 2). According to Jacobs and Potter, “in 1994, women reported approximately 500,000 rapes and sexual assaults, almost 500,000 robberies and 3.8 million assaults. The perpetrator was male in the vast majority of these cases”, making crimes against women “the most obvious candidate for recognition as hate crime” (Jacobs and Potter 19-20). Crimes against women, however, are not recognized as hate crime by some laws. This is the case with other social groups that apparently aren’t considered important enough to be considered victims of hate (Kopel 2). David Kopel, Director of Research for the Independence Institute, a public policy research organization in Golden, Colorado, concludes that hate crimes are in themselves a form of discrimination. There is long-standing precedent, originating in the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, wherein this kind of discrimination is clearly illegal. The equal protection clause reads: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws” (“The United States Constitution”).
Fourth, while hate crime laws probably violate the Fourteenth Amendment, they are most definitely unconstitutional in that they violate the First Amendment. All hate crime laws do is give higher punishment to crimes that would be punished already, just because they’re considered hateful. Thus, hate crime laws go beyond punishing the act to punishing the attitude or belief of the perpetrator, which is protected by the First Amendment’s guarantee of free expression. The First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” (“The United…”). The First Amendment has been interpreted to give people the freedom of thought or expression. The US Supreme Court unanimously found that hate crime laws which punish prejudice-motivated speech conflict with freedom of thought because they isolated certain words based on their content or viewpoint (“Hate crime”). Jewish Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis sums it up well: “If there is any principle in the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought--not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought we hate.” Go out and lobby you representatives to abolish hate crime laws today.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Penalty-enhancement hate crime statutes are laws that give extra punishment to crimes in which a perpetrator targets a victim because of their membership in a certain social group. Hate crimes laws are ineffective, impractical, themselves discriminatory, and unconstitutional.
First, it is important to understand that hate crime laws have been essentially ineffective. Although hate crime laws have been in effect for over twenty years, an FBI report shows that hate crimes as currently defined have gone up by 7.8 percent since 2006, and the Department of Justice reports roughly the enormous number of 190,000 hate crimes a year (Kopel 1).
Second, hate crime laws are overly impractical for the criminal justice system, which in turn burdens the citizenry by clogging up needed legal resources. James B. Jacobs, Professor of Law at the NYU School of Law among other titles, and Kimberly Potter, a Senior Research Fellow at NYU’s Center for Research in Crime and Justice, have together written a book called Hate Crimes: Criminal Law and Identity Politics that provides a strong case against hate crime laws. One of the authors’ arguments is that “the concept of hate crime is loaded with ambiguity because of the difficulty of determining (1) what is meant by prejudice; (2) which crimes qualify for inclusion under the hate crime umbrella; (3) which crimes, when attributable to prejudice, become hate crimes; and (4) how strong the causal link must be between the perpetrator’s prejudice and the perpetrator’s criminal conduct” (Jacobs and Potter 11). Jacobs and Potter further argue that practically everyone is prejudiced to some extent, so any crime by one member of a group against another might be a hate crime, and thus it would be fair to investigate it as such (Jacobs and Potter 16).
Third, even if hate crime laws succeeded in their goals, they are themselves discriminatory. Again, hate crime laws give extra punishment to crimes wherein a person is targeted because of their membership in a certain social group. However, the only social groups protected by most hate crime laws are based on race, religion, ethnicity, and nationality (“Hate crime laws in the United States” 1). 2005 statistics from the Williams Institute Court Law show that homosexuals are experiencing just as much hate as African Americans and Jews, but yet they are just one of the groups not protected by some hate crime laws (Kopel 2). According to Jacobs and Potter, “in 1994, women reported approximately 500,000 rapes and sexual assaults, almost 500,000 robberies and 3.8 million assaults. The perpetrator was male in the vast majority of these cases”, making crimes against women “the most obvious candidate for recognition as hate crime” (Jacobs and Potter 19-20). Crimes against women, however, are not recognized as hate crime by some laws. This is the case with other social groups that apparently aren’t considered important enough to be considered victims of hate (Kopel 2). David Kopel, Director of Research for the Independence Institute, a public policy research organization in Golden, Colorado, concludes that hate crimes are in themselves a form of discrimination. There is long-standing precedent, originating in the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, wherein this kind of discrimination is clearly illegal. The equal protection clause reads: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws” (“The United States Constitution”).
Fourth, while hate crime laws probably violate the Fourteenth Amendment, they are most definitely unconstitutional in that they violate the First Amendment. All hate crime laws do is give higher punishment to crimes that would be punished already, just because they’re considered hateful. Thus, hate crime laws go beyond punishing the act to punishing the attitude or belief of the perpetrator, which is protected by the First Amendment’s guarantee of free expression. The First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” (“The United…”). The First Amendment has been interpreted to give people the freedom of thought or expression. The US Supreme Court unanimously found that hate crime laws which punish prejudice-motivated speech conflict with freedom of thought because they isolated certain words based on their content or viewpoint (“Hate crime”). Jewish Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis sums it up well: “If there is any principle in the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought--not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought we hate.” Go out and lobby you representatives to abolish hate crime laws today.
First, it is important to understand that hate crime laws have been essentially ineffective. Although hate crime laws have been in effect for over twenty years, an FBI report shows that hate crimes as currently defined have gone up by 7.8 percent since 2006, and the Department of Justice reports roughly the enormous number of 190,000 hate crimes a year (Kopel 1).
Second, hate crime laws are overly impractical for the criminal justice system, which in turn burdens the citizenry by clogging up needed legal resources. James B. Jacobs, Professor of Law at the NYU School of Law among other titles, and Kimberly Potter, a Senior Research Fellow at NYU’s Center for Research in Crime and Justice, have together written a book called Hate Crimes: Criminal Law and Identity Politics that provides a strong case against hate crime laws. One of the authors’ arguments is that “the concept of hate crime is loaded with ambiguity because of the difficulty of determining (1) what is meant by prejudice; (2) which crimes qualify for inclusion under the hate crime umbrella; (3) which crimes, when attributable to prejudice, become hate crimes; and (4) how strong the causal link must be between the perpetrator’s prejudice and the perpetrator’s criminal conduct” (Jacobs and Potter 11). Jacobs and Potter further argue that practically everyone is prejudiced to some extent, so any crime by one member of a group against another might be a hate crime, and thus it would be fair to investigate it as such (Jacobs and Potter 16).
Third, even if hate crime laws succeeded in their goals, they are themselves discriminatory. Again, hate crime laws give extra punishment to crimes wherein a person is targeted because of their membership in a certain social group. However, the only social groups protected by most hate crime laws are based on race, religion, ethnicity, and nationality (“Hate crime laws in the United States” 1). 2005 statistics from the Williams Institute Court Law show that homosexuals are experiencing just as much hate as African Americans and Jews, but yet they are just one of the groups not protected by some hate crime laws (Kopel 2). According to Jacobs and Potter, “in 1994, women reported approximately 500,000 rapes and sexual assaults, almost 500,000 robberies and 3.8 million assaults. The perpetrator was male in the vast majority of these cases”, making crimes against women “the most obvious candidate for recognition as hate crime” (Jacobs and Potter 19-20). Crimes against women, however, are not recognized as hate crime by some laws. This is the case with other social groups that apparently aren’t considered important enough to be considered victims of hate (Kopel 2). David Kopel, Director of Research for the Independence Institute, a public policy research organization in Golden, Colorado, concludes that hate crimes are in themselves a form of discrimination. There is long-standing precedent, originating in the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, wherein this kind of discrimination is clearly illegal. The equal protection clause reads: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws” (“The United States Constitution”).
Fourth, while hate crime laws probably violate the Fourteenth Amendment, they are most definitely unconstitutional in that they violate the First Amendment. All hate crime laws do is give higher punishment to crimes that would be punished already, just because they’re considered hateful. Thus, hate crime laws go beyond punishing the act to punishing the attitude or belief of the perpetrator, which is protected by the First Amendment’s guarantee of free expression. The First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” (“The United…”). The First Amendment has been interpreted to give people the freedom of thought or expression. The US Supreme Court unanimously found that hate crime laws which punish prejudice-motivated speech conflict with freedom of thought because they isolated certain words based on their content or viewpoint (“Hate crime”). Jewish Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis sums it up well: “If there is any principle in the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought--not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought we hate.” Go out and lobby you representatives to abolish hate crime laws today.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Editorial Questions
1. What is a problem/issue that our entire student body (our school, community, country, etc.) faces today?
Hate crime laws.
2. What is your view/position on the problem or situation?
I will argue that they should be abolished.
3. What would you like to achieve with your editorial? (What is the desired result?)
Increase support for the abolishment of hate crime laws.
4. How will you persuade your audience to adopt your viewpoint as theirs? List at least 4 persuasive points.
I will argue that hate crimes are 1. ineffective, 2. impractical, 3. themselves discriminatory, and 4. unconstitutional.
5. How will you motivate your readership to action in your conclusion?
I will encourage them to lobby their representatives.
6. How will your editorial serve a public purpose?
Because it will apply to the public at large and encourage them to take action.
Hate crime laws.
2. What is your view/position on the problem or situation?
I will argue that they should be abolished.
3. What would you like to achieve with your editorial? (What is the desired result?)
Increase support for the abolishment of hate crime laws.
4. How will you persuade your audience to adopt your viewpoint as theirs? List at least 4 persuasive points.
I will argue that hate crimes are 1. ineffective, 2. impractical, 3. themselves discriminatory, and 4. unconstitutional.
5. How will you motivate your readership to action in your conclusion?
I will encourage them to lobby their representatives.
6. How will your editorial serve a public purpose?
Because it will apply to the public at large and encourage them to take action.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Voices of Hope Full Story
Voices of Hope lasted the entire day, with performances each period and continuing after school until midnight. Second hour began with a choir on tour that made Voices of Hope one if its stop – they both sang and made financial contributions to the Angel Foundation. The Girls Treble Choir from Falcon Middle School, a group that also gave money to the Foundation, performed second. An Eastview Spanish class performed third and a Japanese class fourth, both in their respective languages. Fifth was the Men’s Chorale. The sixth and last group to perform was the Eastview Women’s Chorale, the group that organized Voices of Hope.
Later in the day the main highlights consisted of performances by the Minnesota Choir, the rock band Ferris (which is made up of Eastview students and alumni), and Select Three, a local boy-band.
Cancer is a major public health problem in many parts of the world, and one-fourth of all United States deaths can be attributed to it. Over a third of cancer deaths worldwide are due to tobacco smoking, alcohol use, not enough fruits and vegetables, obesity, and the human papilloma virus.
Voices of Hope raised money for the Angel Foundation, a Minnesota charity founded in 2001. The Angel Foundation fulfills unmet non-medical needs by providing education and support for them through its Facing Cancer Together (FaCT) program.
FaCT holds education seminars, family activities, and other programs. The Foundation also provides direct financial assistance with rent, mortgage, groceries and gas, phone and utility bill payments. This means that cancer patients won’t have to decide between purchasing their medication, or food and shelter for their families. Furthermore, the Foundation focuses on non-medical needs because there are already many organizations raising money for cancer research.
Indeed, Eastview senior and singer Kelsey Reger reports that her choir director Judy Sagen decided to work in conjunction with the Angel Foundation for this very reason. She further reports that the Voices of Hope event originated with a few fellow singers that wanted to make a difference because their own families had been affected by cancer.
Reger was inspired to participate in the event because “it’s a simple way to contribute the small amount of money I have to a good cause”. It was different than other Eastview fundraiser was different than other fundraisers Eastview has conducted because it “allowed an opportunity to use our own talents to create change, and a lot of people are affected by cancer”.
Voices of Hope set a goal of raising $25,000 through performance fees, participant sponsors, corporate sponsorship, audience ticket sales, a choir clinic for elementary school students, and merchandise/food sales. It has raised $15,000 already.
The Angel Foundation is always in need of funds. The Foundation accepts whatever contributions you can make, and to contribute simply go here: http://www.mnangel.org/donate/donate-to-angel-foundation
Later in the day the main highlights consisted of performances by the Minnesota Choir, the rock band Ferris (which is made up of Eastview students and alumni), and Select Three, a local boy-band.
Cancer is a major public health problem in many parts of the world, and one-fourth of all United States deaths can be attributed to it. Over a third of cancer deaths worldwide are due to tobacco smoking, alcohol use, not enough fruits and vegetables, obesity, and the human papilloma virus.
Voices of Hope raised money for the Angel Foundation, a Minnesota charity founded in 2001. The Angel Foundation fulfills unmet non-medical needs by providing education and support for them through its Facing Cancer Together (FaCT) program.
FaCT holds education seminars, family activities, and other programs. The Foundation also provides direct financial assistance with rent, mortgage, groceries and gas, phone and utility bill payments. This means that cancer patients won’t have to decide between purchasing their medication, or food and shelter for their families. Furthermore, the Foundation focuses on non-medical needs because there are already many organizations raising money for cancer research.
Indeed, Eastview senior and singer Kelsey Reger reports that her choir director Judy Sagen decided to work in conjunction with the Angel Foundation for this very reason. She further reports that the Voices of Hope event originated with a few fellow singers that wanted to make a difference because their own families had been affected by cancer.
Reger was inspired to participate in the event because “it’s a simple way to contribute the small amount of money I have to a good cause”. It was different than other Eastview fundraiser was different than other fundraisers Eastview has conducted because it “allowed an opportunity to use our own talents to create change, and a lot of people are affected by cancer”.
Voices of Hope set a goal of raising $25,000 through performance fees, participant sponsors, corporate sponsorship, audience ticket sales, a choir clinic for elementary school students, and merchandise/food sales. It has raised $15,000 already.
The Angel Foundation is always in need of funds. The Foundation accepts whatever contributions you can make, and to contribute simply go here: http://www.mnangel.org/donate/donate-to-angel-foundation
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