Commentary on classmates #2

      Well Mr. Griff has put an interesting issue out there. He states that the concealed gun holders should be allowed to carry a concealed weapon onto any college campus in case an armed gunman, who is set out to kill people, shows up on campus and goes ahead with his plan to kill people for whatever reason. I think that it is wrong to carry any weapon onto a campus full of young people who are just looking for the opportunity to be the hero. He, also, states that there has been 12 incidents in the past 27 years that a gunman has shown up on campus' with the intent to shoot and kill his fellow classmates and teachers for whatever reason. That is 2 of them per year and it is a lot of incidents that have happened. But I think that having more people carry fire arms is NOT the answer. I think that there should be a plan action with the police to prevent these occurrences from ever happening. Let us say that there was an incident on our campus and one of the licensees had a gun and tried to prevent this from happening. He tries to shoot the gunman and misses and kills another innocent bystander. How is that going to impact his/her life from that point forward? He/She will be very distraught and probably will think how this all could of been avoided. We ought allow the trained police officers of our campus to do their job and take necessary measures to end it. I think Mr. Griff has a valid, rational, and believable point but I feel it is too extreme to let the licensee to carry his/her gun onto campus.
      I don't think the answer is to allow concealed hand guns by anyone. God forbid this ever happen at ACC, but if it does I would feel more safe with just the police having weapons and not just the concealed licensee having them. I think that if that person has their heart set on going on a killing spree, they are not going to care or think about those concealing a gun ready to re-act to the situation. They will still plan and carry out the attack regardless of who is carrying a gun. They do not think like that in my opinion. I think that one of the solutions is to have a set plan in place to try to re-act to this volatile situation by the police department. We should also pray like hell to not have this happen to our campus!!

Legalizing Mary Jane !?

        With Texas being in the 47th percentile in the nation's math scores and about the same in other scored areas, I think we ought to legalize marijuana and use the taxes and revenue from the legalization of marijuana to fund our K-12 education. In one of the most liberal cities in Texas, I think that this idea would get a lot of support from our community. There will be probably a lot of outcry as well because we are legalizing a banned substance. People say that marijuana is a gateway drug but I think they say that  because it is against the law. If you were to legalize the herb, we could save money on all the petty drug charges and we can fund the Education Department of Texas and bring them up to date in our test scores with the other states.
       Just think about how much money we spend on every trivial marijuana arrest and all the legal fees that are involved in each case. If we take those petty arrests away and use a portion of the money that would of been used to prosecute these people to be put back into our education system, I think you would see a raise in our scores as a whole. We also need more trained individuals to serve on our education department. They need to have the kids interests in mind and not their own. When Texas finally legalizes this naturally grown herb, it should be dispensed by a dispensary. This shop will have to pay taxes to be able to sell it from this approved location. So we, in turn, will have pay this adjusted price so we can finance our education into improving our test scores state-round. This will be beneficial for everybody because with higher test scores comes getting into better colleges with better degree programs and will in turn make these people higher paid citizens than those who are not educated. Since the Lottery of Texas was approved, it was supposed to be helping fund K-12 Education but the State of Texas needs more help. So this law in legalizing marijuana would also help some of our cancer patients, people who cant sleep, people with an ailment, or those of us that just wanna relax after a long day at work and school.

Comment on Classmates work #1

In the article The Texas Reflection, my classmate  pitches the idea that the ACL event and the TX/OU game should be moved to different weekends to let one of the events be on a certain weekend and the other on another. As I am a born and raised Austinite, I disagree because the ACL event brings in a lot of money for the Austin economy for the entire weekend. The football game is only a 4 hour game and a little bit of driving back and forth to and from Dallas. In recent years I have had tickets to both and have done both. Yes you have to miss ALL the day shows but if you have your heart set on going to ACL, you will be able to attend only the night shows. ACL is such a huge event that it brings in people from all over the United States and other foreign countries. I don't think those people are going to care if a few thousand of people not being able to attend the event on that day. I think the authors intended audience is the University of Texas students who will not be able to attend the saturday performances at ACL and the Red Rivalry game. The author is being very rational and believable but is not looking at the whole picture. In this day the economy still needs a boost and what better way than to have two events on the same weekend. You might have to make a tough decision on what you want to attend.

Legal Drinking Age 21 or 25?

         In my opinion, I think that the legal drinking age of alcohol consumption should be moved to the age of 25 instead of the current age of 21. I know that when I turned 21 and was in the beginning stages of learning much fun alcohol was, I was much too young to understand the consequences of my decisions to drink.

         Take for example of this irresponsibility in the article in The Austin American Statesman, this 19 year old college student who provided alcohol to three other individuals. As the night progressed, these people thought it would be a good idea to get really wasted and then jump off the 1st floor window. One of the individuals was a 24 year college student as well and she later passed away from this incident with a serious head injury. So what I am saying is that these people have to understand the effects of alcohol and how it impairs their judgement and decision making. I think that every high school senior and/or college freshman should be subject to an alcohol awareness classes and learn about the consequences following your decision making.

        So this was just one example that I found in the newspaper. I think that the age of 25 is a good round number to begin the drinking era. One would have to pass these classes on awareness with a standard passing score. I know that a lot of people grow up faster than others but i think 21 is too young to be given that kind of responsibility.  I know, in my case, I had a daughter at the age of 23 so responsibilities quickly shifted from irresponsible to responsible in a matter of months. But not everybody can grow up the same way or experience the same thing that I did.

        So in my view of concern for our young people I think we should go to our legislature and try and get the age of alcohol consumption raised from 21 to 25. I am sure there will be plenty of young people who will not be happy or pleased with this new law if it is passed but it will be for their own good. So once you reach the legal age of drinking, you will most likely be a functioning part of society and be a little more wiser than a 21 year old college student whose goal is to get drunk and then get laid. So now that my daughter is 13 going on 20, I think that my opinion are the laws ought to be re-examined to see if the drinking age should be increased.

Separation of Church and State

In the article in the Dallas News, Wayne Slater wrote about the issue of politics involvement in church. I think the author's intended audience are the people that teach and work in those churches. I think that he is trying to remind those who have forgotten and reprimand those who are breaking the law without naming names. Because it is against the Federal Tax Law for any minister of a church to try to convince or persuade anyone to join the Democrat or Republican party. I think that his credibility is very rational and believable. He is speaking to a wide range of an audience so he has to be. In the article he says that the ministers have to be very careful in what they say because there could be audits and as well as fines if they do say anything about politics. Mr. Slater had a lot of professors, ministers, and/or rabbi's involved in his blog. I think all of them in one way or another has given their own opinion to many people who are involved in their church. I think it is human nature to work in their beliefs own on the political scheme when they are preparing their sermon or lecture. I think that as a whole the author presented this material in a well written manner and in my opinion was very objective and logical. I think the authors argument and claim is based on facts and law that there has to be a separation of church and state because of the tax exempt status which they claim. I disagree and agree if thats possible. I think that if I was a church member I would want to be informed on how the church views the BIG issues like abortion, education, and taxes. On the other hand, it is the United States of America and you should be allowed to say what you like in however you like without being afraid of the repercussions.  The evidence is quite clear that you can not in any way shape or form influence the congregation into believing that one party is superior than the other. This subject is one of those heated debates that will last my lifetime and then some.

    
So it took a monumental "Texas sized" drought to bring to the attention of the L.C.R.A (Lower Colorado River Authority) the THOUSANDS of dollars (and the billions, yes billions) of gallons of water being siphoned out of Highland Lakes, by their lakeside residents...for free. According to this 'Letter To The Editor' writer, in the Austin American Statesman, residents of this affluent community are supposed to be signing contracts with the L.C.R.A, to pay for the lake water they have been using, for what in this drought is considered 'luxurious', ie; watering lawns and washing cars.  Is this fair? Not according to the author.

Not only is it unfair, it is illegal.  This has been going on for years, and the L.C.R.A has been turning a soft eye to it.  3,000 of Highland Lakes' residents are actually paying for their water on a contract.  A few bad apples in the group?  Well, the author states that 1.6 billion gallons, or most of it, is been taken illegally by the town's residents.  With nothing more than a slap on the wrist for it.  After reading the author's arguments, I toyed between the idea that he was one of the angry "water paying, contract signing, neighbors", justifibly annoyed by the bad behavior of his fellow townsmen, or perhaps  he was the employee of L.C.R.A who had to deliver the "bad news" to the water thieves. Either way, I cannot say I agree with him.  With lakeside residents' property taxes going through the roof, (typically much higher than other areas of the State), why isn't their water consumption taken out of those taxes?  Why should they pay for water, when they spent so much on their land, and yearly taxes, to live on the water's edge. If they are allowed to consume a fish taken out of that same water, it should be allowed, in my opinion, to take use water as well.  The water has to understandably be paid for, I believe it should be incorporated into the homeowner's property taxes.

I am sure there are plenty of people who agree with the author's point of view, though I think that his opinions would mostly be shared by contract owning homeowners in the area.  I do however, understand their frustration at their "doing the LEGAL thing" by paying for their water, when they have neighbors who don't.  I say, "Give the lakeside residents their water!"

Desperate Times in Texas

      In Blanco County, a rancher "Don Casey" has had this land in his family since the 1900's. It dates back to Casey's great-great-great Grandfather, but this drought in Texas may end that legacy for him and his family. In the past 12 months, Mr. Casey has measured a total of 1.6" of rain.

      Since the drought started in 2009, he has seen the price of feeder corn triple to about $400 a ton, the price of hay that used to be $30 a bale skyrocket to $170 a bale. So he has decided to extend the diet of his cows to cotton by-products, which is also known as "gin-trash, the bit of leaf, burr, and seed left after the plants have been through the cotton gin."

      In the article by the Austin American Statesman www.statesman.com/news/local/texas-ranchers-farmers-seeing-record-losses-in-grip-1917547.html Patrick Beach writes,"agricultural losses attributed to the drought have reached a record of $5.2 billion and processing plants and other businesses that serve the farmers and ranchers, the total economic impact hits $8.7 billion."


      I think that this article is worth reading because this situation is going to affect us in the long run. The price of beef, the price of gas, and the price it takes for these farmers to keep their herds alive will increase as the drought continues. The drought could and most likely will affect our lives in one or another. I think it is one of duties as Texans to really think about who we are putting in the offices of State and local Government.