Everyone needs a kryptonite?

BY ROBERTO CELESTIN

Every heroine/villain needs a weakness. Superman’s weakness was red or green kryptonite, Hulk’s weakness was his own anger and Cyclops could not even control his own optic blasts. For if they are too strong what’s the point of even trying. But what happens when there is nothing/no one powerful enough to counter a powerful and ambitious entity? We were reminded what were the possibilities of what a powerful and ambitious entity could do last Thursday.

It was a pleasure having Mr. Thomas Giovanni reminding us that the constitution doesn’t guarantee us much as we would like to think it does. And that the government through agents i.e. prosecutors/legislators/judges abuse their powers to get a conviction or fast resolution to complex issues. In doing so their abuses usually lead to unjust rulings/unfair laws which could possibly ruin life’s and destroys communities. When Mr. Giovanni asked if there was any way we could suppress or control these abuses we were stumped. A few Verons gave reasonable solutions to the issue but were struck down with the reality better known as bureaucracy. As Mr. Giovanni demonstrated to us it is much easier and faster for us as students to remove a failing grade then then for a convicted felon to appeal a court case which could possibly save an inmate’s life. I am sorry but, shouldn’t it be the other way around? Yes we as students deserve these rights but when someone is on the verge of losing their life shouldn’t we treat them with more empathy. But since our views of criminals are so negative we feel that they should suffer, whether or not they are innocent or not. Or even it was ambitious government agents abused their powers to brand them as criminals. Whether it is in my agency Common Justice or in my neighborhood I have seen how people you expect to protect and serve you could possibly ruin your life just so they could reach a quota. This needs to change.

With bureaucracy rampant within our government how do we maintain control of superman without a kryptonite? After having several days to think about it is there any kryptonite for legislator/prosecutorial/judges? In other words is there any way we could combat the powers of the government from hurting the little rights we do have? Is there any way we could make politicians, prosecutors, and police offices more responsive to the people they serve rather than themselves or the culture they are within? BE CREATIVE HELP ME FIND THAT KRYPTONITE.

This be the WAR! This war be OUR war too!

What an amazing play. Katori Hall has truly overdone herself with this one. I know that it's later in the week but please leave your thoughts and feelings post the play . Here are some thought provoking questions:

How does the depiction of the underprivileged family affect your idea on poverty?

Why do you think the playwright chose to have a thirteen year old girl as the main character and last but not least , In what ways can this family depiction be seen offensive to others? Be honest and open . Healthy debates are always welcome.

ICE Agent states, "Your marriage is considered fraudulent." DENIED!

Finding a solution on how to deal with immigration is important for our government. On the other hand, trying to become legalized in this country is an immigrant's main concern. The government should be stricter or at least conduct well in-depth investigations on marriages where a green card is trying to be obtained. It is not right for immigrants to evade the immigration laws and kind of get away with it if their marriage is not detected. You may ask why? Well, it affects our economy and society. Terrorism, which our country fears and has experienced, is correlated to fraudulent marriages. There is a relationship because the way terrorists make it inside this country is by marrying someone just to gain legal status in the United States. The Center of Immigration Studies states, "Half of the 36 suspected 9/11 terrorists gained legal status by marrying Americans, 10 through sham marriages." If the government is truly trying to prevent terrorism than their first step should be to look and determine if the marriage is valid. Do you not think our economic recession and the war in Iraq could have been prevented if we focused on fraudulent marriages more instead of deporting illegal immigrants who just come here to do our so called "dirty" work?

I understand that every immigrant comes here to live the "American Dream", but it would be right if they were here with a legal status. Most illegal immigrants work for the most minimum wages, which in a way throws other businesses out of business, causing professional and certified people to be unemployed. So, they are basically like a competition in our society. I do not agree with the Dream Act because it is not being fair to its own American citizens who are trying to go to school or find a job. Another point that I mentioned in class was being legal or illegal you may still become a burden to our government. If the legal immigrant cannot find a job, they will obviously turn to the government services for support. For the illegal immigrant, most of them do not file taxes, which is not right because they too are part of this country. If they have a children that was born in the United States, they can qualify for a lot of types of government services which they benefit too. Who is paying for WIC, Medicare, etc.? We are! It is not fair that American citizens who work hard are being taken advantage by illegal immigrants. What do you think should we keep on putting this issue to the side or do something about it?

Internet Censorship

So the class time was not used the way I expected it to be used, but it was definitely used well. Even I learned some stuff as I never thought about the idea of self-censorship. However, it is related to the something else I wanted to discuss; who is doing the censorship. One of the article that we didn't go over in class was the one about the Mexican drug cartels that executed bloggers. My own thought when reading this was the same as the way I felt in class. I would have never thought about the possibility that there would be another entity aside from politicians and industry leaders that might push for censoring the internet. Despite the disclaimer at the bottom of the article that claims the man murdered was just a scapegoat, the 3 who were murdered before him were not scapegoats (the previous 3 cases aren't mentioned in the article. The 2 shown in the picture were the first 2). When I first went into this topic of internet censorship, I wanted say the right to free speech would be the most important aspect that might be affected by internet censorship. However, here is a situation where something even more important than freedom of speech is affected by internet censorship (in a round-about way).

Another topic that I wanted to talk about is the OPEN Act and ACTA treaty. The OPEN Act is basically another bill aimed at tackling piracy, but has help being drafted by new media groups that actually depend more on the internet, such as Google. ACTA treaty is an international treaty signed by multiple countries, but drafted in secrecy since the 1960s. It was meant to protect medicinal patents, but has been used by movie industries to tighten the grip on their products. ACTA is very similar to SOPA and PIPA in the way it works, while the OPEN Act would try to be very precise in trying to find and take down websites dedicated to piracy. Despite the way the act and the treaty are portrayed, ACTA has been signed by the U.S. and OPEN has not obtained much popular support from people online. I wanted to know what everybody else thinks about all of these bills and treaties that try to regulate piracy, but end up being worded too strongly. Personally, I don't like all of these extra bills trying to put more regulation on the internet. If anything, the OPEN Act is the best option so far, but the problem of cost of regulation comes into play.