America Emptiest County!!!

This article was post on Blackboard the past few weeks after we had the lesson about Texas counties. At the first time seeing the article, it drew my attention immediately “1 Café, 1 Gas Station, 2 Roads.” From the beginning of the text, Blumenthal stated such an interesting question “How empty is Loving County?” Here is the answer: “so empty that it cannot sustain two political parties…so empty hat it has trouble seating 12 jurors who are not related to a defendant…” As the result, it is realized as the emptiest county in the whole country. According to the data, there are about 16 people settle in Mentone and 55 others spread throughout the county. The county has too less people to own water system, bank, doctor, hospital, newspaper, lawyer, public club nor cemetery. Moreover, there is no school system; seven children have to drive 33 miles to get to the school in next county. The citizens in the county have been trying to sell land for years but there was no reply. One of the most important things in Loving County is that it is blessed with mineral riches such as 360 producing gas and oil wells, 18 more being drilled which haven not been exploited. One of the hottest questions for our Texas government as well as the national government is “Should they do something to solve this dramatic problem?” As I mention about the mineral riches of the county, the government could invest money in building factories, firms to develop the. On the other hand, the government could also use their state budget to buy their land and turn it into state park, recreation or tourist attraction in order to catch the attention of more people as well as big companies to invest in Loving County. Hopefully, things will change!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/25/25loving.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

A Response to Rural Students Driving less safe than Urban.

The writer of this blog mentioned such an interesting topic which is a big problem that everybody is facing. He made some really persuasive points regarding student drivers and rural roads. He also introduced every common behaviors that young student drivers do such as driving with too many people in a vehicle, underage drinking, speeding and loud music all after dark. However there are a couple of important mistakes that he didn’t mention are using cell phone, doing make-up, even drug use…Most of the students nowadays do not contact by talking any more, but by text messaging. The article outlined a student that admits to text short messages while driving, but waits until the stop point to text longer messages. Teen drinking and driving is another dangerous activity which is illegal.
Besides, he also mentioned a few problems that rural students have while they drive such as the difficulties of the road and too many traffic lights which would influence their driving ability. He realizes the finance obscurity of the government; however, the solution that he offers is weak. Because traffic lights do not solve the problem, completely.

The reply to “Victory of Texas Gun owners”

The author of this piece states a really strong argument about the House Bill which allows Texas residents to carry a concealed weapon in their privately owned vehicles without a concealed carry permit. He gives his opinions and offers much in the way of argument. He also mentions about the tradition of processing a gun while travelling and then clarifies about the “travelling” part. Moreover, he also criticizes the District Attorneys for not protecting their citizens which lead to the situation that “average citizens who want to protect themselves and their families will no longer be treated like hardened criminals.” I also think that he does a really good job on analyzing and I totally perceive the message.

However, I want to add my opinion towards the Bill. I believe that it has pushed the crime into a higher level because everybody could carry a gun without carrying their permit by using the excuse of travelling. In this case, the Governor should find a solution to increase the security of the state instead of letting the citizens protect themselves by owning a gun. As a result, some may abused by using guns for other illegal purposes.

Commission finds hundreds of state reports not needed.

Last Monday, October 29, 2007, I read the article “Commission finds hundreds of state reports not needed” by Mark Lisheron, posted on Austin American Statesman. Throughout the article, Lisheron mentioned that “Library and Archives Commission thinks some of more than 1,600 reports generated annually or biannually by state agencies are unnecessary.” I think this article is definitely a bell to alarm the state agencies to regulate the amount of reports. As we all know that paper are made from pulp, thousands of unnecessary documents are wasted which will wash out number of national forests generally as well as out state forests particularly. Moreover, this also leads to the extravagance of other expenses such as ink, and full-time employees. According to Michael Heskett, “the state regularly compiled a list of about 400 reports that required to produce. The Commission found more than 1,600…and his team hasn’t found them all.” Most of the reports are superseded, duplicative or not needed as currently required. The problem keeps growing when the number of reporting requirements has been increasing in the past 20 years. On the other hand, the Legislature does not put the effort in eliminating the redundant reports from other offices such as Department of Aging which was no longer existed and the needless of re-creating reports for Texas Workforce Commission. I think this is a very serious situation that needs to be solved as soon as possible because there is no point of encouraging everybody to recycle while the state government could not put themselves into action. However, let’s look at the optimistic side, I hope Haskett will work out this problem within another year as he expects: “we haven’t begun our evaluation yet. But I think we can reach our goal of eliminating the deadwood without compromising the need for accountability in our state agencies.”


http://www.statesman.com/news/content/region/legislature/stories/10/29/1029reports.html

Death row case of Mexican citizen pits Bush against Texas.

President Bush and Texas, the state that he once led, were on opposite sides of a Supreme Court over the role of International law in the case of Mexican on death row for rape and murder. The article was posted on The Dallas Morning News last Thursday, October 11, 2007. Throughout the article, they emphasized that neither the president nor The International Court could involve in hoe Texas treats its criminal defendants. The story started from the case of Mr. Medellin, who was arrested a few days after being accused of murder and sexual assault two victims, Jennifer Ertman 14 and Elizabeth Pena 16. A judge sentenced him to death in October 1994. One of the biggest problems is that Mr. Medellin was not notified that he could ask for help from Mexican diplomats. Moreover, U.S compromised at Vienna Convention 1963 “which provides that people arrested abroad should have access to their home country’s consular officials.” As the result, in 2003, Mexico sued U.S in the International Court of Justice for violating the law. Mr. Medellin’s attorney said: “the court could rely either on the international court ruling or the president’s determination.” After going over the case, Mr. Bush disagreed with the decision which makes Texas response strongly that “the international court ruling has no weight in Texas and that Mr. Bush has no power to order its enforcement.” I think that this is a really urgent and serious topic that our government needs to solve as soon as possible because it related with another country. However, I definitely on Texas side this time. One of the most important reasons is that “Mexico has no death penalty,” so even though we return Mr. Medellin to his country, justice was still not served as our state argued: “the diplomat’s intercession would not have made any difference in the outcome of the case. On the other hand, Medellin is a completely dangerous and cold- hearted criminal who needs to be punished properly. Two young lives were taken away from this man, and the price he had to pay was imprisoned in his country? That is definitely inequitable. If we agree to yield Mexico, the percentage of crime will increase due to the law. I hope that our president, Mr. Bush, the International as well as the state governor could straight this situation before it is too late.


http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/dmn/stories/101107dnnattxdeathrow.1587ebcf7.html

Prison escape - Don't be concerned Be very concened

Last Thursday, September 27, 2007, I had a chance to read the article "Who or what is, to blame for prison escape?" at kvou.com by Dave Fehling, reporter of 11 news. Throughout the article, Fehling really concerned about prison escape problem, especially in Texas. Moreover, he also emphasized that our government should maximize the prison security as well as reduce its cost. According to the article, Fehling introduced the two most shocking truths about Texas prison: the male guards were overpowered by the inmates, and many prisoners walk away from low security facilities. As the result, this leads to the death of Susan Canfield, one of the female guard. The escapees knocked her out of the horse while they fled in a stolen truck. This is a climax, a cry for help from our Government to find a better solution to stop the crime before it gets much more serious.
Besides, Fehling also stated that prison policy allows prisoners to work in a vegetable field outside the prison even though both inmates were violent offenders. He also offered a really interesting questioning the article “But are the guards and the policies they’re supposed to be following really to blame, or is there something bigger and deeper at fault in a state that imprisons as many people as Texas does?" About the low security facilities, Texas has very few, on average one of the lowest rates in the nation, hundreds of prisoners escape every years.
According to Mitchell Roth, teacher at Sam Houston State University, accepted that sometimes guards do deserve criticism, like after Gulule fooled them by putting a dummy in his cell bed. “If you saw the dummy it didn’t look like anything from this earth, and yet they passed on it and didn’t report somebody missing,” Roth said.
Another problem needs to be solved is the amount of prison staffs, there are about 150,000 prisoners in Texas prisons but only 3,000 guards. Low payment is also one of the reason why Texas is shortage of guards. Problem will become worst because this November, our government plan to build three more prisons which would cost a quarter billions dollars. On the other hand, we also need more guards and they need to be trained. Consequently, this project will cost lots of more money.
Instead of wasting that much money to build three other prisons, I think that government should invest that into training the guard staffs to solve this serious prison escape first, well-equipped our prisons and fix some prison policies such as not allowing dangerous inmates work outside of the security range.


http://www.khou.com/news/state/stories/khou070927_ac_escapes.1164381fe.html

Texas - the optimistic side

Last Saturday, I had a chance to read the article "More Texas Sunshine for Government" by Senator John Cornyn who serves in the Arm Services, Judiciary and Budget Committee. According to the article, he insisted that Texas has one of the strongest laws in the U.S and the state is known for allowing citizens access to government records and requiring that the material be produced quickly. Moreover, as a citizen, we deserve to receive more information about how the tax money is spent as well as elected offices. Cornyn also hoped that the bill Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National Government Act of 2007 would become law soon in order to protect access to FOIA fee waivers for legitimate journalists and those engaged in the expanding world of information. After reading the article, I was so proud of our state and much more optimistic about our local government. This is the proof to us that our governors really pay attention and concern about us. They are trying their best to speed up the process in oder to bring the rights and benefits to all the citizens in U.S generally and in Texas particularlly. As the result, it will make "our American democracy even stronger."

http://www.conroetoday.com/npps/story.cfm?nppage=381