11/10-11/17 #2

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/17/big.three.auto.bailout/index.html
The article I read was about the Congresses decision to figure out if they want to bail out the nations big three automakers. The reason behind this bailout is to be able to protect American jobs and to help the economy avoid an even bigger recession. Republicans say that about 4 million jobs would be cut if the automakers go out of business. The democrats support the bailout because even though this would deal a huge blow to the economy the automakers will go out of business anyways. So the Congress wants to vote this week before Obama gets into office where he has the power to do whatever he wants. I think the author opposes the bailout because he talks a lot more about the disadvantages than the advantages and makes it sound like it is the automakers fault for what happened. This article is very similar to others on other newspaper websites. All the websites also talk about the potential job losses and what will happen to the economy if the automakers go down. In my personal opinion I think that the bailout won’t work and will just be a waste of money. No matter how much money you give to automakers it will not change their sales because people still need to have money to buy their cars. If people are not buying cars before the bailout then what will happen after? A question I would pose to the writer would be what the current presidents take on this deal is. Also what type of ramifications would this deal have a couple of years down the road. For example how hard is it going to be for the automakers to be able to get back on their feet and be able to sell quality cars again?

11/10-10/17 #1

For my paper I am writing about how climate change has affected the Darfur crisis and how the lack of rain and vegetation in the last 40 years and how the Arabs and Africans need to put aside their differences in order to work on the problems plaguing their towns and villages. If I wanted to incorporate a naysayer argument in my paper I would debate that while desertification has caused the two sides to have to share resources more and therefore cause more violence from people that getting what they want. I would discuss that eventually water is going to run out anyway and that two sides of people that already hate each other are most likely going to run into violence sometime. If someone was to naysay me like that I would point out that while two ethnicities that disagree with each other throughout history are bound to fight every once in awhile I would point out that many of the differences this time around such as the farmers land being shrunk due to less rainfall the last 50 years and also the underground wells drying up so it makes village people travel even farther to get water. Then lastly, I believe that the U.N. needs to become more involved in the humanitarian efforts there and to also have troops there in a peacekeeping capacity so they can make sure the genocide stops and prevents further incidents. What a naysayer would say to that is that civil wars need to be solved within the country to be able to have an everlasting peace accord. Also that when outside countries get involved sometimes it isn’t in the best interest of most of the population and that country is just helping to better themselves.

11/2-11/10

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/10/obama.bush/index.html

The story that I found involved Barack Obama and his wife making their first visit to the white house after Barack had been elected president. I was surprised to learn that this was Obama’s first time ever visiting the Oval Office. Also while the current president Bush was chatting with Barack, Laura Bush and Michelle Obama walked around the grounds and of the residence. Another important topic this article touches upon is that the author talks about how when Obama get into office he is going to use his presidential power to enact laws instead of waiting for Congress to give its approval. I also enjoyed the part of the article where the author mentions that during the entire campaign season it was like Obama was campaigning against Bush because of his constant references to Bush’s downfalls. I enjoyed this part because I just imagined how awkward the meeting between the two of them must be. Although Bush did call Obama after he was elected to congratulate him on his victory and to tell him that he will cooperate with him as much as he can to ease his beginning term in the white house. The author gives a pretty negative outlook towards the future of the economy and the credit crunch. This article is very similar to the same articles posted in other newspapers. They all mentioned about the wives hanging out and talking about policy. They also all mentioned how they talked the war in Iraq and the economy. One question I would ask to this article would be what kind of advice did President Bush give Obama and what exactly they talked about. I think it would be interesting to be able to sit in on their conversation and see how they interacted and got along with each other.

11/2-11/10 #1

For the past couple weeks I have thought deeply upon what I would like to include in my writing portfolio at the end of this year and looking back I have found that while I haven’t written any outstanding papers I also haven’t written any that are terrible either. Upon review of my previous papers I have decided that I will probably include the third paper we wrote in which I described the effects we have on the Grande Ronde Aquifer and argued that we need to reduce its consumption in order to leave water for the next generation. For this paper we had to write in a group of 3-4 people. I found it to be very difficult to be able to incorporate all the group members’ ideas in the paper seeing as when someone had an idea we would write a paragraph or so about it and it was hard to be partial to everyone. An advantage of this paper however is that because we only had one person write it, it is one singular voice which makes the paper flow a lot better.
I will also include this next research paper that I plan to write about the destruction in Darfur and how climate change has had a very large in the violence of this region. This paper is longer than the papers that I have grown accustomed to writing but will hopefully be a better overall work because it is the culmination of all the previous work I have done so far this semester. This paper is interesting me in the way that there has been much discussion on Darfur in these past couple years and after listening to so many outside sources I can finally look through all the information I can find and form my own conclusion as to what is going on over there.
I am currently debating on whether I should include the second paper which I thought we did very well on. But looking at it now there are glaring deficiencies in each persons writing style and I feel like no matter how many changes I make to it, it probably still will not be worthy of including in the portfolio. This second paper was by far the hardest to write and to incorporate each persons section into a decent paper. Each person wrote differently and seemed to cite sources in a different manner as well.
Another paper I have considered including in the portfolio is the first paper in which we had to write about our past writing experiences. This paper probably has the best chance to include the other two. Some changes need to be made to it though, including moving some paragraphs around and possibly lengthening it a little bit. This first paper was a bit of a struggle for me to write because my peer review on it had a lot of comments and really gave me a good idea what I needed to work on and what my strengths were.