Military Reforms: Transgender Members of the Military (Assignment date: 6-22-16)

         In an editorial titled "Transgender Troops Protected at Last," the author discussed the lifting of the ban on transgender people from serving in the military that took place recently, announced in a speech by the Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter. During his speech, he stated "We have to have access to 100 percent of America's population for our all-volunteer force to be able to recruit from among them the most highly qualified - and to retain them." This is a landmark step for the mainstream cultural inclusion of another population in American society, at the governmental level at least. While the measure does not do anything for acceptance at a personal level between members of the military, the lift of this ban is crucial to aid that sort of acceptance between peers that has the potential to cause massive problems if absent.
          Besides being a large step forward for the military, the lifting of the transgender ban has not come without its own set of problems. Currently the requirement for transgender civilians to join the military is to have been in their new gender for a year and a half at minimum, and have all of their transition procedures finished. This requirement is extremely high and demanding due to the fact that it often takes years for a transgender person to make the personal decisions pertaining to their medical operations. These often range from hormone replacements to miscellaneous surgeries. Because of this, the article argues that they "should be forced to affirm that they have completed a medical transition before enlisting if they are healthy and fit for the strenuous requirements of military life." While this criticism is valid, and has been confirmed to be taken into account for the revising of the guidelines for transgender people to join the military within the next two years, having a mid-transition transgender person in the military does have the possibility to cause issues within the ranks of the military. Transgender people who are midway through their transitions should be able to serve, but there should be a limitation to prevent any possible medical problems. What the Department of Defense will most likely come up with is to allow them to serve, but only if they can prove they are medically able to serve without risk at their current transition phase. That way all medical liabilities are eliminated while allowing the maximum number of volunteer recruits.

Article Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/opinion/transgender-troops-protected-at-last.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

You Can Rest Now Mr. James, You Won (Assignment date: 6-17-16)

          As the Cleveland Cavaliers took the NBA championship on Sunday, June 19th, LeBron James truly established himself as a basketball legend, bringing Cleveland it's first Championship title in over fifty years. According to an article called "The Arc of the LeBron James Story Reaches Its Climax" by Marc Tracy, "his legacy had definitely been chiseled." This is because, even though he won the MVP award in the NBA four times, won two championships with the Miami Heat, played on the U.S. Olympic basketball team, and seven finals appearances, his latest feat brought his career to a fantastic climax.

          The article talked about James' career with varying detail, and took to using the word "bildungsroman" to describe his career. It is a German word that roughly means "novel of development," in reference to James's time in the NBA, going from Cleveland to Miami, and then back to Cleveland again. As his time as a free agent came in 2010, James made the decision to play for Miami and leave behind his home. This decision left him branded as a traitor to Cleveland and he was unfairly slandered as "The Whore of Akron" by a book. While this massive backlash against James was completely unreasonable, due to the fact that, like all other players, as a free agent, he was free to go anywhere he wanted to, James realized after four years with the Heat that he wanted to go play for his home team once more.

             In the end, it was necessary for him to go and play with a different team and gain new experiences and opportunities to better himself as a basketball player. With the experience of two championships under his belt, James was welcomed back with open arms at the end of the 2014 season when he came back to the Cavaliers. With the fact that he was one of the best in the NBA long confirmed, his next goal was to do the impossible, win a championship for the Cavaliers, and more importantly, for Cleveland. It was a goal that only The King could accomplish. Within one season, this goal nearly became a reality, only to be squashed by the Golden State Warriors in the 2015 championships. The very next year, 2016, the Cavaliers faced the Warriors once again in a grudge match. However, this time, the Warriors lost and James had done the impossible. He led the Cavaliers to their first NBA Championship victory in 52 years. This is truly the climax of James' career simply because the feat was so monumental. As said in the article, anything after this event is merely an epilogue, or a prelude to the retirement of yet another legend simply because anything else just pales in comparison.

Article Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/22/sports/basketball/lebron-james-nba-title-cleveland.html?ref=basketball

Texit? Really? (Assignment date: 6-24-16)

          In response to the world-shaking Brexit vote last week, according to an article on the Times website by Reuters, a movement in the U.S. state of Texas has claimed to gain steam. It goes by the name of Texit, an obvious copy of the same play on words used in Brexit. This movement is geared towards the secession of Texas from the United States of America and claims to have approximately 250,000 backers. While the state does have an extremely large economy and could most likely survive on its own, this movement is nothing more than an immature imitation that, while not wholly spawned from Brexit, was highly motivated by it. On top of that, States are not allowed to simply secede from the United States, it goes directly against the constitution. As seen in the Civil War, simply seceding and becoming an independent nation does not bode well for the defector, especially in an age like today, where killing power is enhanced tenfold. While the governor of Texas has stepped forward to publicly speak in his disdain and lack of support for the movement, the fact that it has made as much publicity as it has gotten is an insult to the nation it once clamored to become a part of. Even though there are smaller secession movements all across the United States, none of them have come close to the supposed size of the Texit movement, but nevertheless it will suffer the same fate as all the other movements. Texit will go nowhere and eventually fizzle out simply because it is a useless and time-wasting movement.

Article link: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2016/06/24/world/europe/24reuters-britain-eu-usa-secession.html

McCombs 7 & 8: The Power of the Mass Media (Assignment date: 6-15-16)

          After reading chapters 7 and 8 of The News and Public Opinion by Max McCombs, it is made clear (with plenty of justification to boot) that the mass media can dictate public opinions and affect political races to a moderate to large extent. A presented example of this is a media theory/practice called priming. In this theory, an issue that a person believes is more important than others will be used as a determining factor for their view on a particular figure. The media can sway the direction that the priming takes by putting out stories pertaining to an issue of the media's choosing. This can be seen in the current 2016 elections in the form of immigration policy. Because of his ludicrous wall proposal, Donald Trump not only managed to garner nation wide publicity, but he also gathered a large following of (albeit heavily uneducated) voters. These voters were, as a matter of fact, concerned about the flaws in the U.S. immigration policy, or at least wanted to make all Mexicans leave the country to "protect jobs." This stands in stark contrast to his primary competitor Hillary Clinton, who plans to put in place a citizenship program for illegal Mexican aliens, and also stand by President Obama's affirmative action immigration plan, which was recently ruled unconstitutional by the supreme court. As a result, she has not gotten nearly as many voters from her stances on immigration as Donald Trump has.

            Chapter 8 touches on news coverage of candidates in a political race. It presents the conclusion that the public opinion of a candidate can be swayed by not only the amount of coverage provided by the media, but also by the tone in which the coverage is presented. In the case of a news agency having a particular agenda, or a bias in favor of a particular candidate, it can lend more coverage towards said favored candidate in a positive light. In contrast, it can also reduce the coverage of the opposing candidate, and then when coverage is done on them, the company can talk about them in a negative tone, therefore attempting to sway the viewing population in the way the media company wants. An example of this can be found in the New York Times in the form of an extreme bias in favor of Hillary Clinton, and against Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Many commenters have actually dared to call out the Times for their lack of coverage on Senator Sanders, while the coverage on Donald Trump is almost always negative.

A Society Dictated By Those Stuck In the Past (Assignment date: 6-27-16)

Recently, in response to the world-shaking Brexit vote, a Times OP-ED writer, Jochen Bittner came out with an article titled, "Brexit and Europe's Angry Old Men." In it, he started by talking about the event that took place during the year of his birth. In 1973, Britain entered what is known today as the EU, motivated by "the anxious old men of my parents' generation, who swore that the only alternative to unification was a relapse into nationalism." This statement refers to the politicians at the time, who of course were older men, dead set in their ways and focused too heavily on the past. In this case, the past they were focused on was World Wars One and Two, which broke out primarily as a result of radical nationalism. Their fear of another massive war led to the process of globalization and the founding of the EU. While this step was undoubtedly a good idea, it was not without problems. This gave way to the current generation of troubled old men that, as the article discusses, are just old enough to be able to look upon the "pre-1989 era" with nostalgia. This era was when Europe's countries were still largely isolated from each other, and globalization was not nearly as relevant. As a result, the current generation of old men, or at least the ones in support of Brexit, are on the complete opposite extreme of those that founded the EU, and are irrationally in favor or disintegration and isolation. As one of the motivating factors behind the Brexit movement, these old men are extremely racist and carry a severe disdain towards immigrants, and even fellow Europeans. An action such as Brexit as a result of xenophobia is an example of none other than radical nationalism similar to that which caused the first and second World Wars. What society as a whole needs is a blend of young and old politicians that are willing to work with each other to get past petty issues such as racism and work to better their respective country and fix the cons that have resulted from current globalization measures that have already been put in place, like the EU.

Article Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/24/opinion/brexit-and-europes-angry-old-men.html?_r=0

Finding the Best Time to Find Dory (Assignment date: 6-13-16)

          In a lighter article in the Times found in the recent archives pertaining to the success of Disney Pixar's latest movie "Finding Dory," author Brook Barnes duly noted that the movie was a monumental success with an estimated $136.2 million in opening weekend sales. This large opening sales amount is second only to the opening weekend sales of "Shrek the Third," the Pixar movie that clocked in with a total of $140.9 million in opening weekend sales. As one of Disney's most renowned characters, the movie was a much awaited sequel to the classic "Finding Nemo" in which Dory actually took part in a journey to find his friend Nemo, the protagonist of the first movie. The massive return on "Finding Dory" is most definitely partly due to the success of its predecessor and the anticipation of the Nemo fan base on the sequel. However, the secret to this triumph truly lies in the timing of the movie's release.

          When "Finding Nemo" was first released to theaters in 2003, it was a landmark movie that secured its place among Pixar's timeless movies. Fans cried for a sequel, and over 10 years later, they finally got it. By the time this sequel was released however, all of the young children that originally watched "Finding Nemo" and wanted to see its successor were in their teens, twenties, and possibly even their thirties. This meant that not only did all these original fans want to see the movie, but there was also a whole new generation of children that were alive and breathing that were available to be pulled in by Dory's undeniable charms. By precisely timing the release of Nemo's successor, Disney could have potentially doubled the amount of people that went to theaters on opening weekend, therefore causing their revenue stream to increase proportionally. While the article does not delve into any real analysis about why "Finding Dory" did so well, timing is doubtlessly a possibility, even without the help of a professional analyst.

Article Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/20/movies/finding-dory-swims-to-top-of-box-office.html

Feeling the Bern: Who Will Sanders Endorse?

         Now that Hillary Clinton has "clinched" the Democratic nomination, the question now is, what candidate will he endorse for the presidency? One of the goals of his campaign was to keep Donald Trump out of office, but he also has made clear his disdain for his former opposing presidential candidate within the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton. In Sanders situation, he has several options, he could endorse Trump, which won't happen, he could endorse Hillary, as painful as that is, he could go rogue from his party and run for the presidency anyways as an independent, betraying his party but bypassing the biased and bought off super-delegates, or he could run as the Vice President for the Green Party's Dr. Jill Stein, an unexpected twist.
         At least one option is completely out of the question, there is absolutely no way shape or form that Sanders will endorse Trump. He has explicitly voiced his opinion of him several times over and about how he must not become president of the United States. As for running as an Independent, it is highly unlikely that he will do this, but it is a possibility. If Sanders filed as an Independent and then ran against Clinton and Trump, he would most likely win the presidency. He has more than enough supporters to over take Clinton, who only won the Democratic nomination due to predisposed super-delegates, and probably more than a few bribes. However, this would also reflect poorly on Sanders and he could be branded as a sore loser, and he also has said multiple times during his campaign that he did not want to run as an Independent, but the only problem with this is that a situation is always available to change right up until the very end. Also, the Democratic primary still is not over yet, so Hillary's victory is still not yet official, which provides Sanders with some time to change his mind before he has to make a decision.
          For Bernie's third option, he could join together with the Green Party and run with Dr. Jill Stein as Vice President. The Green Party has reached out to Sanders' campaign in the past but never received a response, perhaps this was due to Sanders' assumption that he would win the presidency, so he saw no need to respond to the Green Party. Simply because this, like an Independent candidacy, is such a huge move, it is rather unlikely to happen. Bernie's fourth option, as the most likely, is unfortunately also the most sickening. He could endorse the very person whose corruptive prowess is set to end his run for president, Hillary Clinton. After an hour long discussion with President Obama, who recently endorsed Clinton, this past Thursday, Sanders said he would work with Hillary Clinton to stop Donald Trump from becoming president. However, Sanders clearly chose his words carefully, because he refrained from saying that he endorsed her for the presidency, he merely stuck to his goal of preventing Trump from being in office. At this point, Sanders could merely submit to the party that has treated him so poorly, which he will most likely do, or he will go rogue as Independent. After all, desperate times call for desperate measures.

The Comments Section: A Civil War Zone For 21st Century Keyboard Warriors

          While reading articles in the New York Times, it is often possible to stumble upon the comments section. What separates the Times from other massive news agencies is that it actually takes the time to moderate its comment sections and approves comments before they actually get posted into their destined threads. This way, comments such as trolls and overzealous, overbearing self-righteous people that are undeniably rude to everyone and anyone who disagrees with them, are prevented from going on their toxic rampages. For this analysis of comments sections, one in particular was chosen, specifically, a rather frustrated comments section for an article about the TSA aptly titled, "Behind Long Airport Lines, a Chain of T.S.A. Cuts, Missteps, and Crises." It discusses the repeated mistakes made by the T.S.A. surrounding long lines, gaps in securities, personnel shortages, and budget difficulties. Seeing as civilian hatred of the T.S.A. is not only widespread (and rather valid to an extent), it is not surprising that this particular comments section is full and ablaze generally with comments against the T.S.A. and all of the injustices and inefficiencies that go on within it.

          One particular verified commenter, however, did not see this current situation as entirely the fault of mismanagement within the upper echelons of the T.S.A. He attributed a large portion the budget issues to the House GOP and the speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, who made it so that a portion of the money from each ticket went to the U.S. treasury instead of to the T.S.A., which caused a lack of funds, which in turn caused a decrease in the number of hired screeners. This more limited amount of personnel gave way to longer lines. He pinned this action onto the Republican party as a whole, by saying that they put their ideology before practicality This comment acknowledged that many of the problems in America's airports are caused by serial cases of poor management by senior officials, but also introduced a different viewpoint on the problem that is the T.S.A. by discussing outside factors, which in this case is the House GOP, and even more generally, the Republican party. While I may not completely agree with this statement, it is easy to understand the frustrations of this particular commenter.
          Another commenter, who appeared in the NYT picks section, This particular commenter attributed many of the problems within the TSA to the poorly designed screening process. With the lack of screeners aside, the checkpoints themselves are also terribly designed, which is also a large contributor to long, backed up lines. However, they also said that people need to also do their best to make sure they have no contraband and all of their luggage in order, so that way the lines aren't slowed down by a constant stream of people that need to be searched for detected contraband. While this point is somewhat valid, not everyone is going to be an upstanding citizen that follows all the proper procedures, which is why the TSA needs a major infrastructural overhaul. At the very least, even if the managerial staff aren't changed, an engineer should be brought in to redesign the checkpoints with efficiency in mind and to compensate for a lack of staff. Even something like a new checkpoint design could aid long lines exponentially. However, one good system set in place by the TSA is the pre-check system, which allows for faster moving lines within their own individual checkpoints, helping at least a little bit to fight outrageous line lengths.

Public Editor Post Analysis: Being First Sometimes Isn't Worth it, the Death of Chief Justice Antonin Scalia

          When Chief Justice Antonin Scalia passed away on February 13, 2016, news corporations were abuzz with the tragedy. While all the major mass media corporations all had the news out quickly, the Times ended up posting the news online last, at 5:39 PM, while companies such as CNN and The Guardian posted at 5:20 PM and 5:04 PM, respectively. On top of being late to post online, the news also was not found in the Sunday paper, and much to the dismay of many readers, articles pertaining to the battle over Scalia's position in the court and the devious political intentions surrounding it were quickly released. This is due to them feeling that the Times was not giving Scalia his due respect by immediately talking about his successor right after his passing. For these reasons, several letters were sent in to the Times complaining about how they were not only slow on releasing articles about Scalia, but also shamefully disrespectful to him.
           While the points of these readers may be painfully valid, they are also essentially accusing the Times of not being perfect. This is because it is more important to get all of the proper facts before releasing an article. If a news network releases an article quickly, but it is wrong, then it could damage the reputation of the firm, while a late, but correct article may not receive as much traffic as an early article, it does not carry the potential to damage a companies reputation as severely as an incorrect article. This is due to an incorrect article violating the crucial bond between readers and news corporations, trust. If readers do not trust a news organization to provide them with the correct facts, then the readers will simply go to another news corporation for information. An incorrect article would critically reduce the amount of trust a reader has for a network, so it is more important to get the facts right than to be quick on the draw.
           As for discussing the politics of the successor of the position in the Supreme Court, the Times made the right decision. While it most likely was rather disrespectful to the memory of Scalia, politics does not stop for anything, so this is essentially a case of "the show must go on." Even though it would have been more respectful to let there be a time gap between Scalia's death and the political struggle over his former position, the duty of the Times is to report the news as it happens in order to keep its readers informed and up to date on current events, including those of the political sphere. Just because Scalia's heart came to halt did not mean that politics had to as well.

An Analysis of An Analysis: Copyright Laws

           After browsing the FAIR website for a while, there was one specific article that was particularly interesting and eye-catching. It was a criticism of a New York Times article calling for a strengthening of copyright laws, specifically musical copyright laws. While this Times article argued that the current laws in place already should be strengthened, FAIR thought otherwise. Unlike the Times, FAIR argued that strengthening them would only cause harm to America's overall GDP by 0.24 percent, which in monetary terms is $4.3 billion. Because of this, FAIR argues that instead of strengthening current copyright laws, new creative licensing laws must be put in place that are adapted to the technology currently in place.
          While FAIR does make a good point, the fact of the matter is that technology in modern society is growing so rapidly, and new platforms for music distribution are popping up so frequently, that it is nigh impossible to come up with a proper set of laws that deals with every nook and cranny of music streaming or viewing on the internet. If laws were set in place that did something along the lines of possibly forcing users to pay to view music videos on a site such as YouTube, the backlash would be unfathomable. Dealing with a site like YouTube that provides viewers with free access to music is only one of the many difficulties that lawmakers are facing in terms of dealing with copyright laws. The main flaw with this FAIR article is that it simply points out the flaws in other arguments without presenting a concrete counter solution on what should be done, it only says that something should be done, without doing a thing about it. While it does contain an insightful, and correct view, the article itself is simply complaining about the changes that need to be made without actually trying to invoke them.

FAIR article: http://fair.org/home/nyt-calls-for-stronger-copyright-protection-without-calculating-the-costs/

Democracy and the News Chapter 2: Thoughts and Recap

          After reading the second chapter of Democracy and the News by Herbert J. Gans for class on Wednesday, it was clear that Gans presented several valid points and critical analyses about the inner workings of mass media, its journalists, and the struggles of the transition into a new age, the Information Age. In the chapter, Gans talked about how journalists for large news corporations are no longer able to report on the stories that they feel are important in an unbiased manner. In order to financially stay afloat, they must report only on the stories that they are told and must do it in the manner that the company sees fit. This affects viewers drastically, and the blatant biases can be observed today within large companies such as FOX News and CNN in the Israel-Palestine conflict. In the case of FOX, there is a clear bias in favor of Israel, while in the case of CNN, there is an unmistakable bias in favor of Palestine. This is primarily due to these companies operating on a for- profit model, which dictates that the news that is reported must be catered to the people in order to increase the number of viewers. As a result, only the most "important" news is reported on, or only certain types of news are covered, while leaving many other areas out. This results in a less educated citizen that is not as fit to politically contribute to society.
          In terms of the news companies themselves, aside from their journalists, the coming of the New Age has lead to an overall, as Gans put it, "disempowerment" of these news corporations. As the New Age has come in, the prominence of the Internet has risen, television audiences have shrunk, and people don't care as much about the news as they used to. Even as the readers of printed news shrinks due to news that is broadcasted over the TV, the audience of news on the television has also declined in number. This shrinkage in overall audience is due to the ease at which people are able to access news over the internet, and moreover, on their phones in general. With this ease at which citizens are able to get news, there is no reason for them to read it in print or wait to watch it on TV, leaving news corporations with a gaping hole in their income and a need to make the transition with the world to the internet. In terms of actually caring about news, citizens in this modern age are much more obsessed with social media such as Twitter and Facebook. This draws most, if not all of their attention and care away from the news, and makes it even harder for news companies to get people to read their news, even if they establish sites on the web. Due to this, news corporations are still adapting to the new age of the internet and how to refill the hole in profits that is still growing, as citizens from the previous age start to grow old and die, and the number of denizens of this Information Age, continues to rise.

Fifi's: A Sane Oasis Amongst A Sea of Paranoia

         Time for a small discussion relating to the broiling conflict in the Middle East, specifically, the racial tensions in Israel between the Jewish and Arab populations. While browsing the New York Times, I stumbled upon an OP-doc titled "The Shampoo Summit." This was a documentary about a hair salon in Haifa, Israel called "Fifi's" run by two Christian Arabs. Within this salon, unlike most of Israel, both Jews and Arabs, without a hitch, peacefully talked and ate with one another as if they were no different from each other. As the documentary put it, the salon was a "little island of sanity." This is due to the salon being free of the prejudices and paranoia that plague most of Israel during this time of conflict with Hamas and the Palestinians of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
          The documentary helped to show that, as in every conflict over the whole of time, there is equal hatred and fear from both sides, and offered a reminder that on them both, there are people just like us. It showed that peace truly is possible between Jews and Arabs. However, something that I feel this documentary failed to cover was the feelings and attitudes of Muslim Arabs. The documentary only covered and discussed the feelings of Christian Arabs and Jews, as those were the main clientele of the salon. Often times, the children of Muslim Arabs within Israel are raised to think in a much more martyr-like way, in opposition to Israel as a state. Without their opinions considered in this documentary, it lacks the thoughts and feelings of one of the major populations in Israel.
          One specific point in this documentary that also irks me is that one of the people being interviewed says that the two populations would get along much better if the primary politicians were women. Without being prejudiced towards women as a gender, I can't say I agree with that statement. This is due to the fact that historically, woman politicians have been generally more tough than most men in governments around the world. One relevant example is Hillary Clinton. To be quite frank, she may be seen as a pathologically lying, scandal-clad, evil politician, which she most certainly is, but that is besides the point. She is a battle hardened individual who has been historically tough on crime and harsh to deal with all around due to her crippling realism, which is not seen in many male politicians (or politicians in general usually). In a recorded backstage interview conversation with representatives from the Black Lives Matter movement in which she tells them that they can't actually fully succeed with their goals, and that they merely re-disperse resources and change laws, not the hearts and minds of the people they try to reach out to. Once again, this pragmatism, this pessimism and harshness is rarely found in male politicians as a whole, and it is most certainly not suited for fostering relationships between conflicting ethnic groups/religions.