Border problems still need fixing Comment

I wrote my Blog stage 8 critique on the Lone Republic's "Border problems still need fixing" article.  There are plenty of reasons for a person to try and come to America illegally. In a perfect world, the process would be followed but as you know, this world, especially Mexico, is far from perfect. You said it, the process takes too long. There's not a system in place for most Mexican citizens to be able to care for family on a consistent basis. Their best solution is to come over to Texas and work illegally and send money back to Mexico. There are always employers looking to hire illegal immigrants because they can pay them less and feel less liable if an accident happened since the worker was undocumented. Who would they have to inform? I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the Mexican government to help out. They are probably part of the problem. I do agree with you that the process is in place and it should be followed. It's not easy to tell that to someone who needs money to feed their family now and not years later when he may become a citizen.

To Pay or Not to Pay--That is the Question

Exonerated Texans are eligible for $80,000 per year of wrongful imprisonment.  Personally, I believe that is a bit high but understandable.  The state comptroller is slashing payments to some exonerated Texans who have prior convictions because of the way the law is interpreted.  In particular, Ronald Taylor spent 14 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit.  After he was exonerated on DNA evidence, he expected a hefty payment from the state.  Instead of the $1.12 Million he was expecting, he was offered $20,000.  Since Taylor was on parole for another crime when he was wrongfully sentenced for the rape, his parole was revoked and his sentence imposed The comptroller's office views that as concurrent time served and subtracted the concurrent service money from their offer to him after exoneration.  Since Taylor was exonerated on the wrongful rape charges, his parole should never have been revoked and his sentence for his prior crime should have never started.  The law is open to interpretation though, which is causing all the problems. The final outcome will be how the Texas Supreme Court interprets parole.  Is parole merely a continuation of a criminal sentence that is served outside of prison or does the sentence end when parole begins and the inmate leaves prison.  Since the first sentence should never have been imposed, I don't believe it is fair to take away the money owed to Taylor because of the time he spent in prison on the first crime.  Taking the money away just seems cruel.  To me, it seems like the comptroller is just trying to save a little money.  I think they know they are in the wrong.

Critique on Student Editorial

I wrote my commentary on this student's editorial about political attack ads.   I completely agree with the point made.  You have to wonder what kind of clear thinking voter would hear an attack ad, believe it, and then vote based on the statements of the ad.  Wasting money on half-truth attack ads and ads that really don't say much make me wonder why anybody would donate to the candidate's campaign.  The candidates should simply state their case and why we should vote for them and let the media dig up the dirt.  Instead of retaliating, maybe the candidate should address the negative statements of the attack ad.  I wonder how many times these lame attack ads have worked against the candidate who paid for them.  If all a candidate airs is attack ads on his opponent and doesn't say anything about why we should vote for them, then I would be more inclined to vote for the candidate who stated why he deserves our vote and what he will do if elected (even though it may be a lot of empty promises).  It really should take more than political media ads for voters to make up their minds on who to cast their vote on, but I'm sure that some voters vote based solely on what they see on television.

Political Ads--Seriously?

With all the media outlets in the world today, it is easier than ever for a person running for political office to get their voice heard in one way or another.  Some political ads are straight forward and serve the facts.  Some ads make outlandish statements and accusations about opponents while others seem to be just strange or weird maybe to make the voter remember the candidate's name.  There also seems to be a lot of horn tootin' in today's political campaign ads.  There are a handful of ads out there that make you wonder why anyone would pay for the air time to put that ad on when its' statements are so ridiculous or the relevance of the ad is questionable.  I would like to bring to light a few of the ads that really "get my goat."  When I hear these ads start to come on, I usually turn off the radio or television.

First of all, why are political ads copying the format of the beer commercial featuring the world's most interesting man.  Is there not enough free thinking creativity left to create an ad that is original and gets the attention of voters.  This radio ad from Judge Jeff Rose copies the format and, to me, just sounds a bit goofy.  I understand being serious all the time is not very attractive to most voters but being over the top silly isn't either, at least in my opinion.  The statement about Judge Judy watching his court just seems like a waste of air, which I imagine doesn't come cheap.  Another ad under this umbrella attacks Bill White by calling him "the most mysterious Liberal in the world."  This ad is just a barrage of attacks and does nothing to persuade me to vote for Rick Perry.  The original beer commercial is annoying enough, I don't want to hear these poorly put together rip-offs that don't say much.

The new ad for Rick Perry which basically blames Bill White for a police officer's death is just absurd.  The video depicts Jocelyn Johnson, whose husband was a police officer killed by an illegal alien during an arrest, showing support for Perry and disdain for Bill White's policies while he was mayor in Houston.  The ad basically blames Bill White for the death of the officer.  This article from the Austin American Statesman explains what happened during the incident in question.  The officer didn't do a thorough enough investigation of the suspect and failed to find a concealed weapon.  It is a tragic incident any way you spin it, but to try and use it for political gain is just disgusting.

This commercial for John Cornyn which was played at the Republican Party of Texas Convention is just a joke of an ad.  It is set to the tune of "Big Bad John" originally recorded by country artist Jimmy Dean.  The video makes me think he wants to be a metaphorical Senator of cowboys in the wild west.  The whole ad is just statements tootin' his own horn and making people think he's a real tough Texas cowboy "doin' the Lord's work for Texas." I don't see how a rationally minded individual could take this ad seriously.

Two lesser radio ads are for candidates I can't remember at this moment.  In one of the ads, the candidate states that he's for concealed guns and that he carries one in his boot.  That's a little too much information.  Maybe that type of information should be kept to himself.  The other ad is for a female candidate who seems proud to be a rookie and states we should vote for the rookie because Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio were rookies.  I was left asking myself if that was the only reason we should vote for her.

These ads cost money and it doesn't seem that these candidates are really getting their money's worth with these types of ads.

Advantages of Perry

This is a critique of a commentary from the Burnt Orange Report titled "Rick Perry's Natural Advantage".  The commentary, written by Karl Thomas Musselman, was written Sunday October 10th 2010, at 4:33 PM.  The article mentions reasons why Rick Perry has an advantage over Bill White in the race for the governor's seat in Texas.  Since this article is on a liberal blog site, you would expect the intended audience to be liberal, which, to me, seems the case.  He defines Perry's advantages as "The Shrinking Media" and "Blissfull Ignorance.  I agree with his comments on "The Shrinking Media" to a point.  He puts a lot of importance in print media, such as newspapers, and seemingly discounts the reporting aspects of online resources such as blogs.  I don't see why a website couldn't publish long form articles in multi-part series to inform the public.  More and more people are moving from print media to electronic media.  Maybe it's time for some of the major print media sources to allocate more attention to an online format to transfer their ideas to a larger base of readers.  I do agree with the fact that since Texas is such a large state, it is hard to have a unified voice in the news.  What maybe headline news on the Gulf Coast, like a hurricane, could be just a flash in the pot on news stations out in West Texas, which probably would not be affected at all by a hurricane.  I believe online sites that report political news would have a much greater chance being a unifying news source since collaboration is possible from all over and the end product is posted in really just one spot,  the Internet.  The unifying news source being online also has faults such as lack of Internet in some areas, so unifying Texas news would be a very hard thing to do.  The author's second "advantage" for Rick Perry is "Blissful Ignorance".  I agree with this completely.  Most voters will listen to the ads on TV and believe them and vote accordingly with the candidate they like the most without much other thought.  It seems to me though that every political ad promoting growth and prosperity has some sort of back story.  There is even a reference in the blog to a commentary in the Austin American Statesman referencing my point. The reference mentions that Texas is the leader in job creation but it faces a massive budget shortfall.  Ads for Rick Perry recently have been praising Perry for the creation of jobs in Texas, but at what cost did these jobs come?  To some the answer may be in the form of layoffs, spending cuts and accounting tricks that will be considered next year to combat the state budget shortfall.  The author seems to be credible, graduating from UT and working on political campaigns, but he is strictly liberal.  I like to read articles and commentary from writers who are truly independent and present positive and negative facts for all candidates.  I believe the intent of the article is to shift the blame for Bill White's poor numbers in the pre election polls from the campaign itself, to media and uneducated voters, although, he does state that Bill White needs to educate voters and basically build a stronger campaign.

Textbook Tantrum

The intended audience of the "Crying wolf --again" article in the Houston Chronicle would definitely be liberals or anybody that leans left.  The editorial was written on September 27, 2010, in the Houston Chronicle and no author is given.  The author is making a point of how ridiculous the debate on textbook content has become.  As far as the author's credibility, he doesn't give specific examples of what the arguments are about, but he does give just a general overview such as "the board has put publishers on notice with a resolution condemning 'gross pro-Islamic/anti-Christian distortions' in Social Studies textbooks".  I agree with what the author implies which is that rewriting or skewing history to fit your agenda is just wrong.  I also agree that It seems to be an attempt to capitalize on the current hostility toward Islam.  I'm not sure what the credentials of those voting on the board are.  Are any of them experts in social studies or history?  This article doesn't dive that deep into the issue.     Without specific examples, it is hard to sway those on the fence with this particular editorial to follow his beliefs.  I can only say that I believe the whole textbook debacle from the beginning was a joke.  I haven't done a lot of research into it.  I have seen the evening news and read a few articles.  It just looks to me like Christian conservatives trying to rewrite or skew history to make their beliefs and such look much more attractive to a younger audience as to build up their future support base and leaders to keep their cause alive.         

Austin grocer unhappy her store is in Perry ad

In Rick Perry's first television ad of the general election campaign season, he has used Business logos and storefronts without their permission.  Peg Mccoy of the Farm to Market store is very unhappy that she was never asked permission for use of her store or logo.  She asked the campaign to take down the ad, but the campaign has no plans to take the ad down.  The ad boasts about Texas being a "job-creating" powerhouse" and shows shots of McCoy's store and the Avenue Barbershop opening for the day.  Read about the story here.  See the actual ad here.

I applaud Ms. McCoy for standing up to the campaign.  She flat out states that she doesn't endorse Rick Perry.  I have a hard time siding with the campaign's statement that since the shots were filmed on a public sidewalk, it was all right to use the storefronts and logos without permission.  Whether people want to admit it or not, a shopper might consider not shopping at the stores in the ad simply because the shopper dislikes Perry, so it's good that the stores are coming out and disapproving the use of their stores in the ad.  It seems to me that Perry is being very arrogant in trying to take responsibility for the success of these businesses.