Entry 13

European countries divided ahead of Palestinian statehood bid

Fox News (via Associated Press), November 29, 2012


http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/28/european-countries-divided-ahead-of-palestinian-statehood-bid/

Summary

Recognition of Palestine's statehood is hotly debated in the UN General Assembly right now. While two thirds of the member states have already agreed upon recognizing Palestine's statehood, European and American nations are sharply divided to accept its request. The countries which go for accepting Palestine's request argues that Palestine has rights to be recognized as a sovereign state which can have an equal power to negotiate with Israel, so recognizing Palestine as a state is a separate issue that does not require the negotiation of both Israel and Palestine. In contrary, several countries, including the United States, Israel, and Britain, aver that recognition of Palestine's statehood only deters the peaceful approach of dealing the action by unilaterally imposing actions to Israel without consent and strongly expressed their opinion that they would not vote for the recognition.

My opinion

Accepting Palestine is not an issue that Israel is required to intervene. Even though Israel is directly related to PLO issue, it is the right of Palestine to be recognized as a neutral sovereign states in UN, and the opinion that direct involvement of Israel is necessary is a weak argument merely favors the United States and other nations allied with Israel. As a matter of fact, UN should acknowledge Palestine as a neutral state that has an equivalent power with Israel. Palestine may have seize more power due to the recognition; however, the world has been only favorable to Israel and the United States, and if the world steadily keeps this view, Zionism is merely the intrusion of Jews in Arabic country where Arabians have lived for thousands of years.

Entry 12

Obama campaign took unorthodox approach to ad buying

Washington Post, November 15, 2012
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-influence-industry-obama-campaign-took-unorthodox-approach-to-ad-buying/2012/11/14/c3477e8c-2e87-11e2-beb2-4b4cf5087636_story.html

Summary

For the TV ads, Obama's Campaign team chose a novel strategy that deviates from typical "norm" that most of the Presidential campaign usually follows. Unlike buying certain airtime according to TV ratings and watching demographics, Obama's Campaign team only bought time of day in certain channels. Before releasing the advertisement, the "optimizers" gathered information by phone call and door to door survey to make sure that the campaign is targeting the right audiences. Then, the team bought a detailed data for TV viewers, including demographics, matched up the collected data with their own internal voter list and poll responses, and targeted two particular voting populations: voters who still on the fence against Obama and his sporadic supporter. Consequently, Obama's Campaign gained great success in TV advertising in a way of buying many channels to contact with voters and outnumbered Romney in TV advertisement, while using less money than Romney's Campaign spent. For the most part, the new advertisement strategy that Obama's Campaign team implemented for the Election 2012 brought about successful and efficient result for the Obama's Campaign.

My thought

It is interesting that his advertising strategy is quite successful. It is a common idea or a norm that it is much efficient to target certain demographics by showing advertisement to particular TV viewers in specific time. However, I realized that there are different way of attracting voters effectively instead of buying the airtime but buying many channels. Even though it sounds economical to show advertisement based on demographics and TV ratings, it is much efficient to buy as many TV channels as possible and appeal as many voters as possible. For the most part, though it deviates from the norm, the choice of Obama's Campaign team was a wise and creative solution for outnumbering Romney in TV advertisement and exposing himself to larger voting population than Romney did. In brief, Obama and his Campaign team did a good job in attracting voters and inducing the victory in the Election of 2012.

Entry 11

DOJ sends voting rights monitors, observers to 23 states

CNN News, November 2, 2012

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/02/justice-department-to-deploy-election-observers/?iref=allsearch

Summary

In order to prevent the deprivation of voting rights of minorities in election place, Department of Justice sent 780 voting monitors to ensure that voters–especially minorities–do not lose their voting rights for unjustifiable reasons, including language fluency, ethnicity, wealth, and national origin. The voting monitors are dispatched to 23 states with a mission of guarding that the election is held properly according federal laws. DOJ sends more observers in several place where problems can arise, such as Arizona, South Dakota, Chicago, and Michigan where a large number of ethnical minorities reside–Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans.

My thought

Sending observers to ensure the provision of voting rights is a proper action that the government must take to protect basic rights of the U.S. citizens. Despite civil rights movements and social activities extended the rights of minority groups and hugely contributed on establishing egalitarianism in the U.S. society, there are still many limitations on and discriminations against minorities. Therefore, DOJ, as the government institution in charge of providing civil rights for every citizen, ensuring that the minorities are not underrepresented or barred by unreasonable backgrounds, including national origin, physical disturbances, and ethnicity, is necessary action in terms of providing equal rights and protections for all the citizens of the United States.

Entry 10

Kennedy relative Michael Skakel denied parole

CNN, October 24, 2012
http://us.cnn.com/2012/10/24/justice/connecticut-michael-skakel-parole/index.html?hpt=ju_t4

Summary

Michael Skakel, the nephew of Robert F. Kennedy, is denied the parole after serving 10 years in prison for murdering Martha Moxley with gold club in 1975. Killed her during adolescence, Skakel lately get tried for conviction and sentenced imprisonment for his crime. Dorothy, the mother of Martha Moxley, claimed that Skakel must be imprisoned for at least 20 years, and John Moxley left a remark about him "representative of the most dangerous aspect of our society" in his letter to call for the denial of Skakel's parole. In contrast to the opinions of Moxleys, several witnesses describe Skakel religious person. Moreover Robert Kennedy Jr.described him as a kind and religiously devoted person who cannot commit such a heinous crime, and his attorney Hope Seeley also portrays him a concerning and generous figure who commit himself to God. She added if the trial was held during his juvenile years, he would receive only four years imprisonment, so it is enough for him to be imprisoned for 10 years and he deserves parole. As Moxleys and witnesses are having different view on Skakel, his parole is ultimately rejected.

My Opinion

Even though he is showing good moral character today, it is undeniable that he committed the crime.  And the most serious moral depravity is shown by the fact that he did not turn himself to police for 27 years after he committed crime. For the most part, it is dangerous to justify that he is a good person who will not commit crime in the future. The primary reason that he receive much longer sentence than 4 years is that he did not confess his sin for 27 years and tried to conceal his crime. Who knows that all of his benevolence and good deed were actually affected behaviors to cover his evil nature? Even though the Moxleys' reaction is quite exaggerated, I also agree with Moxleys that his wrongdoing must be punished harshly, and it is too early to be paroled for good moral character.