Immigration detention centers in Texas- WHAT?!

I felt furious reading this article about the Immigration detention centers located in Karnes City and Diley Texas. The articles mentions that these two detention centers are overlooked by private companies that are under contract with the Immigration and Custom Enforcement, ICE. On December 2, 2016 Judge Karin Crump denied the license needed in order to have these two detention centers in compliance with the state. However, this isn't a new problem that arose a few months ago, this problem has been an issue since last year. According to the Texas Tribune article,  

“The state District Judge Karin Crump rules that the Texas Department of Family and Protective services could not issue the license, which are needed to comply with a federal judge’s order issued last year.” 

It's clear with the judge ruling, that these centers are not child care center's therefore, should not be able to house children. But in fact these centers are still open and operating. 

I decided to look up what the Family Residential Standards are, according to the U.S Department of Homeland Security. These standards seem pretty humane and reasonable however, these two institutions somehow did not meet these standards for these children. 

Blog 6

“Chasing Cancer” written by my colleague, Song Mayo, did an excellent job in presenting the article published by the Texas Tribune. She made a great introductory statement for her blog, that grasped my attention to continue reading her thoughts. I do believe her blog made valid statements that supported the short article about clinical trials for cancer treatment. I wished she would have provided more information such as the website for those who want to participate in a cancer clinical trial. However, with every pro theirs always a con. Clinical trials for these patients may not be the answers to all those who have cancer. We are all different, in the sense that our bodies can have different reactions upon taking the trial medication. In addition, what if the patient is part of a standard treatment (placebo treatment) instead of an investigational. This would be devastating to those patients who are inputting their valuable time and not receiving the appropriate treatment.

Texas, a Fossil Fuel Addict State

Texas should implement a solution for our earth's climate change. How? By reducing the amount of fossil fuels we consume. Fossil energy sources include oil, coal, and natural gasses. These fossil fuels are consumed in our everyday life. For example, we use fossil fuels when we drive our cars and the electricity we consume. How is energy produced? The fossil fuel power plants burns carbon fuels to generate steam that drives large turbines to produce electricity. The fossils that are burned produces large amounts of carbon dioxide, which causes climate change. In a recently published documentary called "Before the flood," states that the average American in the United States consumes the same amount of energy as 34 citizens in India. However, if we look at the consumption of energy per Texas home, the average is 26% higher than the national level, which is equivalent to 43 citizens in India. The state of Texas must take a stand.  

How can we implement the reduction of fossil fuels? There are many ways to reduce theses consumption. One way is to implement the use of solar energy In order to achieve this Texas can build Gigafactories and Windmills  to produce clean energy. According Elon Musk CEO of Tesla and Spacex, a gigafactory can produce 500,000 battery packs per year; that's an average of 80,000 American homes. For this reason, Texas should lead by example and allow the gigafactories to be built in the state to encourage solar power. If we can get Texas to be a fossil fuel state, we are one step closer to save our eco system.

Critique on Juanita Jean

I decided to critique a blog article written by Juanita Jean, titled “Stoopid Sumbitch”. Even thought this blog was a short blog, it grasped my attention on her mindset of voter fraud. In her blog, she accuses the governor Greg Abbott about gerrymandering the state of Texas. I found it rather amusing of her calling the governor out and blaming his political party in committing fraud in the state of Texas; it is a Republican-driven state. I do agree that the Republican party is committing fraud in the sense of discriminating those citizens who do not possess  a voter ID. However, one thing that I can not wrap my head around is how a College ID with a picture is not considered a voter ID. To me, this is absurd because this eliminates those students who are going to college outside of State or even city. 

Being identified as an independent towards the political parties, I do wish she would have added more facts or given information of recent investigation of voter fraud in the state of Texas. Adding this information and including the amount of money taxpayers have spent to investigate voter fraud, would have given her blog more power.  

Another recommendation for this blog would be to include information about the gerrymandering boundaries in the state. Giving examples of how different counties in the same district do not share the same needs would help to convince new readers of the power that the Republican party has over Texas. For example, Texas 10th Congressional District includes “the northwestern portion of the greater Houston region stretching to the Austin area” (Wikipedia). We can clearly see that the needs of these cities differentiate between one another and favor an ethnicity group. 

Work cited

Jean, Juanita. "Stoppid Sumbitch." Juanita Jean's Th Worlds Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc. N.p., 19 Oct. 2016. Web. 23 Oct. 2016.

http://juanitajean.com/page/6/

"Texas's 10th Congressional District." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2016.

Critic on Testing Policies at UT

In this post, I'm going to be critiquing the article "Testing policies must reflect campus conversation on gender," written by Ethan Elkins.  This article is about a professor from UT named Brian Lendecky who teaches a managerial accounting course at UT, and instructs its students to sit in "alternating genders when taking a test". Elkins emphasizes how the professors of UT should reflect on their classroom policies and take to consideration on the gender standards they implement. He explains in his article varies solutions to this problem.

 Elkins makes great points in regarding how inappropriate this professor is acting against the UT's policy. He addresses the strain for students who have a difficult to identify as a male or female. This is difficult because "transgender individuals have to go through a rigorous process to legally change their gender", thus making some students appear out of place when being placed "as their birth gender rather than the preferred gender.

Another point with which I agree in his article is the solution Elkins brought forward for testing in professor Lendecky managerial accounting course. For example, one of the solutions is that  the professor can make multiple tests, such as Test A, Test B, etc.  Another solution that Elkins recommends is that the professor can book a larger room in order for the students to take the test, and  reformat the test by asking open- ended questions on the test.

I found this article very interesting in many aspects. However, I do think the author needs to implement a study or reference of students of the same gender who are more likely to cheat. Implementing this data would have made his case stronger, and possibly make the professor change his testing policy.

The following article can be found at the link below.
 http://www.dailytexanonline.com/2016/10/05/testing-policies-must-reflect-campus-conversation-on-gender

Work Cited
Elkins, Ethan. "Testing policies must reflect campus conversation on gender." The Daily Texan., 5 Oct. 2016. Web. 9 Oct. 2016. http://www.dailytexanonline.com/2016/10/05/testing-policies-must-reflect-campus-conversation-on-gender

Senate Bill number 11

Earlier this year Governor Greg Abbot signed a bill to carry concealed handguns on public universities and college campus. This bill was introduce as Senate Bill number 11. Allen Fletcher, a Cypress Republican, comments on how he feels “to protect the men and women of Texas who are carrying concealed [handguns] on campus”. However, this law goes into detail of who can carry a handgun on campus. They must have a concealed handgun license and be over the age of 21. Having this regulation gives me a peace of mind because in order to receive a handgun license, one must go through a course, take a test and provide additional documentation to the State. This law also gives the colleges to establish rules of their own in regards to where these handguns can be carried and stored.  I found this article interesting because, as a student I would want to be informed of the areas of where these handguns can be carried on campus. 

Smith, Morgan. "Campus Carry Bill Heads to Abbott." The Texas Tribune. N.p., 31 May 2015. Web. 19 Sept. 2016. <https://www.texastribune.org/2015/05/31/campus-carry-bill-heads-gov-abbott/>.

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