Money does not grow on trees

Many students are worried about paying for school. Whether you have access to grants or have money in the bank, it won’t always be there and with tuition on the rise, many students are stressed to find other ways to pay for school.

Tuition is on the rise, I agree with this, but why? Are they teaching new, more difficult tasks? Are the teachers we are hiring scholars, and expect more? While we don’t know why tuition increases, we all have our ideas. I think it’s to pay for their raises! J

In the reading for class it looks like our teachers don’t have all the schooling they need to be able to teach well. While I think anyone can be trained to teach, I feel like maybe we should be putting money back into the teacher’s pockets to have “continued education”. A refresher course as you will, maybe even a class to that teaches different ways to reach out to different children. After all, we all don’t learn the same.

Paying for school is hard, and the stress to pay it back gets worse the longer we are in school. Maybe we shouldn’t teach our children that everything is given to them, you have to earn it. Everyone does not receive scholarships or grants. I’ve learned to be thankful for what I do have and to work hard for what I want. All students must know when going that some debt will be acquired and paying it off should not be a burden but a known responsibility.

Helping others instead of ourselves

Former President Bush is helping others have the opportunity to be educated on both cervical and breast cancer in another country. Why not ours?

In a column in the Texas tribune, President Bush plans to visit Africa this week to promote awareness about two cancers’ that here in Texas, screenings and treatment have been taken away from females because of budget cuts. Texas, currently, is having a hard time providing this care to low-income women. Bush believes we should help with all types of disease because it will help saves lives.

Governor Perry believes otherwise. Recently, Perry boasted about cutting two thirds of our state’s family planning budget for the next two years. This will make low-income women do one thing, nothing. Without money to pay for these services there is really no place to go to get them for free, and to me I would rather spend my last bit of money on diapers for my child then get screened. Women have this inner mechanism which cares for others and puts them first, and then we worry about ourselves later. It also goes onto say how Perry believes that Texas has the potential to do great things and find lifesaving cures. How many people will that actually help if you take their help away? It’s like saying we want Texas to find a cure, you just can’t use it. It’s also closely related to a joke that goes around saying we want all illegal immigrants gone, but first we need them to build the wall to keep them out. Not Nice.

Let’s not put all the blame on our poor Governor Rick Perry, after all, it’s Bush’s decision to go elsewhere and help others when “his people” are the ones who need it most.

unrecognized hero's

I would have to agree with my colleague about our “hero’s”. They all need to be recognized. Children today need to know about America’s past, the good and the bad. They need to see that there were people who would fight for our freedom every day, then and now. Our men and women of this great country willingly chose to serve in the armed forces, fought for something they believed in, and died fighting for our freedom; they should be remembered and have great recognition.

I seem to notice that if you were to walk with a Vietnam vet and he/she walked passed another vet you would see them smile and simply nod in acceptance. Most of the time no words are spoken yet you see a conversation being said, you see heartache, and appreciation. A monument would mean so much to the men and women who live today and can still recall those days in East Asia. These veterans were to keep their mouth shut and not say a word, but just be happy to be back home. This is a step to closure, although I don’t think one can ever forget what happened over there.

What Rick Perry wants for women

A Blog by Mean Rachel refers to Perry as someone who is contradicting to what he believes in and what he wants. What would women be subjected to if Rick Perry were to be President? On the one hand, he wants women to be vaccinated from cervical cancer which indicates that females will be sexually active at a young age. These girls are not fully mature enough to know what this shot is actually for and why it is being given to them so early on in their child bearing years. On the other hand he wants us to pursue abstinence and wait to have sex until we get married, like he and his wife did. A possible punishment if we don’t wait might be that if we do encounter sex and become pregnant and aren’t able to keep the child, for whatever reason, we must go through a series of steps to be able to give up the baby. Aren’t we sending young teens the wrong message; “Don’t have sex until you are married, but if you do we already took measures to keep you from getting an STD”?  Rick Perry bases his decision making on personal experience rather than studies and surveys. Anyone knows that what’s best for one person doesn’t always work for the next.

Texas has the third highest teen pregnancy in this country. Does this mean we need to have the government step in and stop or prevent the rise in births all together? We also must learn how we are going to care for these children medically, since we are ranked first in the number for children without healthcare insurance. Rick Perry has little to say about how we are to care medically for his people, old and young. So far, he’s not my choice for a better country or women of this country.

what is poverty?

The argument addressed in the American statesman titled Bumper Sticker- No Way to Fight Poverty on September 26, 2011 is that we, Texas, need to find a better way to handle and contain our poverty levels. In the past three years we have seen these levels increase. This argument was previously brought up in the American Statesman by Juan Castillo, stating that Austin leads Texas in the amount of people living in poverty. This article gives both numbers and statistics about who actually is in poverty. These are not who you think they are, and are not always homeless or jobless.  Knowing that the person sitting next to you in class or a co-worker could be living in these conditions makes the reader more aware of what is happening in their very own surroundings. The numbers of people with jobs applying for help is growing. These people either make minimum wage or are being paid below average.

People who help these companies produce jobs within itself don’t solve money troubles. Poverty may never end. Policy makers need to be able to work better at helping to create these jobs, we also need to work on better educating our students so that later in life they will be able to fulfill these jobs which have been provided. We need a better variety of housing for all levels of income. These poverty numbers are a sign of a problem that needs to be addressed seriously and soon. To Texas it’s a family of four making under $22k a year, yet to live comfortably in Austin a family of four needs to make $56k. LBJ first brought up the decision to fight poverty roughly forty years ago and we are still fighting.  Austin, following Texas’ exceptionalism believes itself to be recession proof, which we are not. People every day are looking for ways to make it to the next paycheck, where his/her next meal is coming from, or even just where can I find a job. A little less than 20 percent of Travis County falls below the poverty line.

This article convinced me from the beginning that our government needs to find a solution on helping people in poverty. People who are above the poverty line struggle with the same things and just a little help from our government would go a long way. Sometimes help to get through the rough patch of extra bills and extra mouths to feed, and I think this is what everyone is looking for, a little help to make it up the hill, to make it to the next paycheck without starving.

The Abortion Sonogram law was passed at the beginning of June to make pregnant mothers who want an abortion undergo a series of steps to have this completed. These steps include a sonogram to hear a beating heart and listening to a description of the fetus by a doctor and then having to wait 24hrs before getting the procedure done. In the Texas Tribune, this article “CourtroomBattle Begins on Abortion Sonogram Law” demonstrates how vague this law was written and how it has no definite description of how this law is supposed to enforced. The law was accepted and passed by our governor Rick Perry. No more than a month later did Center for Reproductive Rights file an injunction. The law violates the Equal Protection Clause and the First Amendment causing doctors to act as puppets and tell patients something politically driven. I do have on question for this law. What is the definition of an abortion pertaining to this law? Is it a wanted abortion or one that cannot be avoided?