Lobdell

Over the past three months I was a student in Professor Lobdell’s class on Politics, Religion and Media. It is an undergraduate course that is designed to investigate the intersection of religion, politics and the media and the influences they have on each other. Lobdell takes a variety of current events that display politicians or public policy being influenced through means of religion. As a born and raised Catholic, I knew this class would be a great test for my faith as well as an experience to learn more both sides of the political spectrum. The class covered the history of religion and media in the United States. It was very interesting to learn that some of our founding fathers were not as religious as one might think. We then discussed the Catholic Church and had a guest speaker who spoke of her life after being molested by a priest. Her speech was quite unpleasant to sit through as she compared the church to “Nazis” and expressed her distaste in the church. As a Catholic, I am saddened to hear her story but I still have not lost faith or trust in my Church because others have sinned. We are taught to hate the sin and not sinner, and most importantly forgive. Our class also covered the Muslims religion and the radicals that have acted violently. The violent Muslim acts have helped emphasize my understanding of how dangerous and serious the culture is. This class was an overall great experience and I hope to take more classes with Professor Lobdell in the future.

https://eee.uci.edu/09f/67280

Mikulski Amendment

On Thursday, December 03, 2009, the United States Senate approved the Mikulski amendment by a vote of 61 to 39. Every Republican except Vitter, Snowe and Collins voted against the amendment. All Democrats and Independents except Nelson and Feingold voted for it. The amendment states that anything classified as preventative care or screenings for women by the ealth Resource and Services Administartions would become a mandated covered service. This would result in insurance plans covering abortion. Pro-life leaders opposed the amendment because of their strong stance against abortion. The National Right to Life Committee states, "If Congress were to grant any Executive Branch entity sweeping authority to define services that private health plans must cover, merely by declaring a given service to constitute 'preventive care,' then that authority could be employed in the future to require all health plans to cover abortions.” Supporters of the prolife movement from all over must fight against the bill so they do not have to give their hard earn tax money to a cause that they do not believe in.

Prop 71

Back in 2004, California voters passed Proposition 71 which allows scientists in California to experiment with stem cell research with human embryos. Furthermore, it pumps $3 billion taxpayer dollars into the funding of this research. Since then $700 million has been spent and even more than that has been raised with private money. Of this $53 million has been given to UC Irvine’s Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center which is on campus. However, the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) has not been protecting taxpayers’ interest or its own lofty goals. Some members of the CIRM board are people who stand to benefit from the funding. “[This] fuels concerns that the committee never can be entirely free of conflict of interest or self-dealing,” says the Little Hoover Commission Report. The board is too large, consisting of 29 members, it lacks cohesiveness, and board member terms are too long so they don’t allow fresh new perspectives that could help further the advancement of stem cell science. However, what is important is to restructure the CIRM governing board around principles of efficiency and transparency. This way oversight becomes more efficient and it allows the CIRM to focus on finding new ways of helping cure diseases instead of playing God. In times like these, where we are in a serious financial crisis, it would be irresponsible for scientist to be wasting BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars trying to anything but finding medical cures.

http://taxdollars.freedomblogging.com/2009/06/30/californias-3-billion-stem-cell-effort-suffers-from-appearance-of-self-dealing/24381/

Bob Casey

Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania is one of the countries most prominent pro life democrats in the nation. His father is famous for being one of the most public pro life governors and challenged Roe v. Wade all the way to the Supreme Court. Bob Casey is the only Senator that wants to remake the health care system and oppose abortion. The Senate is expected to debate an amendment that would not allow the use of federal subsidies for any health plan cover abortion. Casey can not currently support the bill Democrats are trying to pass because its possible tax payers money could be used for abortion under that bill. Casey is trying to persuade Democrats to change the bill a little bit so it would make it easier for pro life Senators to vote for the bill. Casey is stuck in a rare situation by supporting the health care reform and being pro life. The author of this article David Kirkpatrick leaves you with the impression that Senator Bob Casey has his work cut out for him and that is going to be extremely hard for Senator Casey to succeed at reforming health care and preventing tax payer’s money from helping abortion.

The Final Sentence

Anthony Sowell is a registered sex offender and he is on trial for killing eleven women and burying their remains near his house in Cleveland. On Thursday morning Mr. Sowell pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. The charges against him include eleven counts of murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, rape, assault and corpse abuse. Bill Mason is the prosecutor on the case and he is expected to seek for the death penalty. In recent years it has been common for serial killers to use the insanity plea, but it is an extremely hard plea to defend. Other serial killers such as the D.C. sniper and Jeffrey Dalmer have pleaded for insanity, but they ultimately received the death penalty. Lee B. Malvo the D.C. sniper was just recently put to death for the murders he committed.

I do not think Anthony Sowell should be sentenced to death. I think he needs to go under intense psychiatric review and figure out if he has a serious mental illness. After this I believe he should spend the rest of his life in prison and not be able to enjoy any of his rights. I do not agree with the death penalty because I don’t think humans should play the role of god.


http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/cleveland-man-pleads-insanity-in-killings-of-11-women/?scp=3&sq=death%20penalty&st=cse

Death Penalty

Bobby Wayne Woods is supposed to be executed on Thursday in Texas, unless the United States Supreme Court agrees to hear his case. Mr. Wood’s lawyer claims that he has an extremely low I.Q. and he is mentally retarded. In 1997 Bobby Wayne Woods was convicted of brutally killing an 11 year old girl and was sentenced to death. In 2002 the Supreme Court ruled that mentally impaired people are not allowed to be executed, but they state courts rule on who qualifies as mentally retarded. Mr. Woods struggled in school as a child because of his low I.Q. and had to drop out while he was in the seventh grade. Mr. Woods brutally raped and killed an 11 year old girl and molested her brother Cody as well. He left Cody in a cemetery basically dead, but somehow someone found him and he survived. Cody testified in court that Mr. Woods is the man who killed his sister and molested him. Wood’s confessed his crimes and there was clear physical evidence against him.

Although Bobby Wayne Woods clearly committed a heinous crime, I do not think he should be executed. I am not saying that just because he is mentally impaired, but because I am completely against the death penalty. I do not believe humans should play the role of god and decide when other people should die or not. I think we should let Mr. Woods live the rest of his life in prison and take away all of his freedoms.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/us/04execute.html?_r=1&hp

Choosing Your Battles

Leland Traiman helped pass the nation’s first domestic partnership law a quarter of a century ago in Berkeley. After seeing gay rights activists lose the battle of same-sex marriage in California and Maine, he is wondering if they should spend their time fighting for legal domestic partnerships instead. Gay rights leaders have insisted that anything less than full marriage equality is not ok. Major activists believe the best way to reach their goal is to attack marriage with all rights and benefits head on and any other strategy would be a betrayal of their goals. Some activists are wondering if they should go far smaller steps at a time, like fighting for domestic partnerships. This way same-sex couples could visit each other in one of them goes to the hospital and cover their children with health insurance. Colorado and Nevada are perfect examples of states that band same-sex marriage but they give rights to domestic partnerships.

I think same-sex couples would be better off fighting for domestic partnerships instead of marriage. A lot of people who are against same-sex marriage believe in the sanctity of a traditional marriage between a man and a woman. I think same-sex couples would have a better chance of gaining rights they need through a domestic partnership.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/11/28/national/a070105S52.DTL