YouTube is one of the many resources on the Internet that has significantly impacted citizen participation. The 2012 Campaign Advertisement video that I used for the last blog post serves to illustrate my point in the post very well. With YouTube, hundreds of millions of people are given access to the beliefs and views of people around the world in video form. Videos provide the most personal form of communication on the Internet because you are able to see the person moving, talking, and interacting visually instead of just reading what they said or seeing a picture of them. Videos on the Internet combines language and images to get a full, interactive project that demonstrates the individuality of the people who upload those videos.

This campaign advertisement for Trump for president in 2012 allows the person who uploaded it to effectively demonstrate his views, and gives the millions of YouTube users the ability to reflect on this person's views. 

2012 Campaign Political Advertisements

On the democratic side of things, here is President Obama's declaration that he will be running for president in 2012. There are no possible democratic candidates that come close to even rivaling President Obama's popularity, and the current president is the favorite to be the winner of the Democratic Primaries.



This video on YouTube isn't necessarily a campaign advertisement, but it was the closest to one that I could find for President Obama. It's a very direct and clear declaration that he will be running, and even though it could be improved in many ways, this video serves as a fairly good advertisement for the president's campaign in 2012.

Here is a video for Donald Trump's 2012 Presidential Campaign made by a YouTube user.



Although some aspects of the video are amateurish, it is a very good campaign advertisement, and, with a few modifications, could be a real campaign ad on television or spread throughout the web. It is a ferocious and ambitious advertisement, and it does a good job of getting the point across that maybe we need an extreme Republican in office.

Ecommerce Taxation

Ecommerce taxation is a very difficult issue to resolve in the United States, and is a hotly debated issue in many states, including, currently, California. Taxes are a necessity for the state governments and for the federal governments in order to fund highways, public schools, government jobs, programs and numerous other things, but, as we are venturing deeper and deeper into this electronic, Internet-based world, several big issues are arising, including the issue of taxation. Taxes are difficult to assign because many of the things bought online are bought in different states or even in different countries, yet they are bought from a computer in the United States. Governments lose money because they don't know how or what to tax of the items bought online. An opinion article in the Mercury News by Jessica Melugin titled "An alternative to California proposal to tax e-commerce" describes a possible solution to this issue:

An origin-based tax regime, based on the vendor's principal place of business instead of the buyer's location, will address the problems of the current system and avoid the drawbacks of California's plan. This keeps politicians accountable to those they tax. Low-tax states will likely enjoy job creation as businesses locate there. An origin-based regime will free all retailers from the accounting burden of reporting to multiple jurisdictions. Buyers will vote with their wallets, "choosing" the tax rate when making decisions about where to shop online and will benefit from downward pressure on sales taxes. Finally, brick-and-mortar retailers would have the "even playing field" they seek.

This seems like the best possible solution to this seemingly-unsolvable dilemma because states will no longer simply lose the tax revenues that they would normally receive through purchases in stores. In addition, I see little that is objectionable in this solution, so I predict that it has a chance of being implemented fairly easily.

Censorship Close to Home

A week or so ago, overt government censorship was put into effect with regards to a video on the San Francisco Chronicle website. The article in the Examiner entitled "White House, San Francisco Chronicle clash over anti-Obama protest video" by Dennis Bodzash, explains how a video of Obama protesters posted to the website of the Chronicle by Carla Marinucci was censored: 

Last week,San Francisco Chronicle reporter Carla Marinucci was covering an Obama speech as a pool reporter. However, outside the speech itself, Marinucci saw some people protesting the Obama Administration, specifically its dealings with Bradley Manning, the soldier accused to sending secret government documents to Wikileaks. Seeing the unexpected story arise right in front of her, Marinucci pulled out her tiny video recorder, typically used for taking video of speeches, turned it on the protestors, and posted the video on the Chronicle website..

In the act of taking video of the protestors, the White House declared that Marinucci violated pool rules for that event and that only the speech itself was to be reported upon. However,Chronicle editor Ward Bushee defended his reporter, saying that she was covering a legitimate news event in itself and that recording the sudden appearance of protestors were not part of the pooling agreement, which specified the speech.

 In my opinion, even though I am a supporter of the Obama administration, I do not think this censorship was justified. I side with the opinion and the argument of the Chronicle, that Marinucci's video was separate from her  pool reporter coverage, and was simply a news story on the side that just happened to be at the same time and place as the Obama speech. In addition, I think the Internet is a vast and uncontrollable place, and the U.S. government must be very careful in limiting what is on the Internet, because the Internet is a symbol of the freedom that is available in America. I believe that very few things should be censored by the government that is posted on the Internet because anything published on the Internet is an extension of the views and the experiences of the people, and should not be censored.

MSNBC Keeping the Public Informed

Going on to the MSNBC website today, I found one of the biggest news stories of the day in politics in various places and in various forms on the site. MSNBC as a news source on the whole did a good job of covering President Obama's own Roast of Donald Trump, by providing a video clip of Obama's jests directed toward the possible presidential candidate at the White House Correspondents' Association annual dinner. MSNBC's video clip of part of Obama's speech is very funny and is the funniest I have seen the president. The video clip is great, but the article covering Obama's jokes about Trump is good also. The article, entitled "Obama mocks Trump and self at gala dinner" explains how the president took Trump's attacks at him and flipped them into comedy, as much of the democratic party has been viewing Trump's remarks already. The article gives a better overall coverage of the dinner than the video, which discussed some of Obama's other remarks about the Republican party, including this one: 

He said he'd heard that Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota was running for president, adding, "which is weird, because I hear she was born in Canada."

This dinner last night was an important issue because it was Obama's first retaliation after weeks of Trump criticizing and taking shots at Obama, yet, Fox News failed to cover the article, demonstrating better news coverage on the part of MSNBC.

After a week when Obama released his long-form Hawaii birth certificate, he said Trump could now focus on the serious issues, from whether the moon landing actually happened to "where are Biggie and Tupac?"

"No one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than 'the Donald,'" Obama said, referring to Trump's claims the same day that he was responsible for solving the issue. 

Why Can't Fox Focus on REAL Political Issues?

I went on to the Fox News website, and clicked on Videos and then Politics. One of the main featured videos with a thumbnail was titled "Political Madness" and the name attracted my attention, so I watched. Here's the video:



After watching the entire thing, I realized that it had very little to do with politics, other than the fact that it involved the two main political figures in the news currently. Now, the first few minutes of the video offer little that is objectionable, yet, around three minutes, O'Reilly begins to shift from covering politics to focusing on uttering ridiculous and contradictory statements, such as the one at 3:02, where O'Reilly says that "talking points hopes they cease and desist for the good of the country." It's interesting that he says this when it was the Tea Party Right, which is clearly represented by Fox News and its broadcasting, that began the rumors that President Obama is a liar because he was not born in the United States, in an attempt to smear the president's reputation.

At around 3:30, O'Reilly shifts completely from the election of 2012 to President Obama's Easter services last Sunday. O'Reilly, for some odd reason, sharply criticizes Obama's choice of church for Easter services, and seems to be hinting that the President is some sort of Constitution-hater or something completely ridiculous like that. I find it very interesting and slightly contradictory that O'Reilly, throughout the early portion of this video, seems to want to get past the birth certificate issue and the rumors surrounding it so everyone can focus on real politics, yet he seems to be vehemently stirring the rumor pot, focusing on the minute details of the president's Easter plans from last Sunday.

New York Times Co. v. United States

The war in Vietnam was causing significant uprising in the United States, and a political scientist working at the Pentagon took action. He smuggled a paper from the Pentagon called the "Pentagon Papers," that detailed the decision-making process of the U.S. in Vietnam, and gave it to the New York Times to publish. The New York Times began publishing this paper on June 13, 1971, and was ordered to stop by the federal government on June 30, 1971. The case was appealed very quickly and was a question of First and Fourteenth Amendment rights to freedom of the press and freedom of speech. The Court ruled in favor of the New York Times with a 6-3 vote, yet all of the justices wrote their own opinions. The majority opinion was that there was nothing in the Constitution that outlawed publishing certain types of material.

I do not side with the Court in this case because there should be some bans on freedom of speech and freedom of the press if the state of the country and foreign policy are in jeopardy, such as what happened with the public release of the Pentagon Papers. 

Here is a preview of a PBS documentary on Daniel Ellsberg and what he did to obtain the Pentagon Papers, his motives behind his actions, and the full story behind the Supreme Court case. 

The per curiam decision made in the Times case was that "any system of prior restraints of expression comes to this Court bearing a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity." In simple terms, the Court saw that the New York Times could publish things like this, even though they might cause issues and uprising.

Gitlow v. New York

Benjamin Gitlow, an communist activist, was convicted of violating the 1902 New York Criminal Anarchy Act and was charged with teaching communist ideals of overthrowing the current United States government. He taught people that it was necessary to overthrow government by advocating mass revolts and political strikes. Gitlow took his conviction to the Supreme Court where the Court decided, with a 7-2 vote, in favor of the state of New York, upholding Gitlow's conviction. the majority opinion of the Court claimed that, even though freedom of speech and freedom of the press are contained within the Constitution, "a state may punish utterances endangering the foundations of organizing government and threatening its overthrow by unlawful means." In essence, the decision to give or take away right to subversive speech is delivered to the states as an extension of the Constitution.

I agree with the Court's ruling on this case, and I have found the ruling of the Court in monumental cases is very consistent and intelligent. I believe that the Constitution guarantees the rights to freedom of the press and freedom of speech, and that controlling what people are saying about the government is against the Constitution, because speech cannot be violent. The ancient proverb "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" holds true in my opinion, and words are rarely as effective as actions.

The site CaseBriefs again provides excellent synopses of the rules and precedents established by Supreme Court cases and a great review for major Supreme Court cases. CaseBriefs explains that, according to the ruling of Gitlow v. New York,

State statutes are unconstitutional if they are arbitrary and unreasonable attempts to exercise authority vested in the state to protect public interests.

Criminal anarchy, as defined by the 1902 New York Criminal Anarchy Act, is "the doctrine that organized government should be overthrown by force or violence, or by assassination of the executive head or any of the executive officials of government, or by any unlawful means."

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas

The 1954 Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas is arguably the most famous and biggest Supreme Court cases in the history of the United States. It overturned the 1896 decision of Plessy v. Ferguson, and established that "separate but equal," in fact, cannot and is not true. Blacks had been denied access to segregated white schools that were clearly much better than the black schools, and the cases came up all through the court system to the Supreme Court. Chief Justice Earl Warren, the same person who mandated the internment of the Japanese after the incident at Pearl Harbor, wrote for the unanimous decision in favor of Brown.Warren took from a Kansas state court ruling that said that "segregation...has a tendency to retard the educational and mental development of Negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racially integrated school system." With the state of the black facilities in comparison with the white facilities and with the Fourteenth Amendment in mind, the Court decided that separate could not be equal.

This monumental decision was very well argued and thought-out, and reflected the changing views of society at the time. During the time of Plessy v. Ferguson, slavery had recently been eliminated, and accepting blacks into society was very difficult for whites then, but as society progressed, blacks began to fight for their rights more, and whites began to accept blacks as equals, like they should be viewed. I agree with this ruling because there was no way that any of the crappy blacks only facilities were anywhere close to as good or clean as the white only facilities, illustrating that there was no way that having separate facilities could be equal

This clip on YouTube from PBS below examines the case of Brown v. Board of Education. It provides a good feel as to what times were like when this court ruling took place with video footage of the different and unequal facilities.

The case of Brown v. Board of Education was different than Sweatt v. Painter in that the case of Sweatt dealt primarily with universities, and the University of Texas Law School in particular, while Brown dealt with public education facilities for grades K-12.

Gideon v. Wainwright

The 1963 Supreme Court case of Gideon v. Wainwright established the right to an attorney in any court cases. Clarence Gideon was an extremely poor man who was arrested for breaking into a pool hall in Florida. When his case was brought to court, he was unable to provide himself with an attorney, and the court denied his request for a court-appointed attorney because they were only available in the case of a capital crime, something that Gideon was not convicted of. Gideon was sentenced to five years in prison, but from prison, Gideon submitted a hand-written petition that was taken in by the Court. Unanimously, the Court decided in favor of Gideon, overturning the prior case of Betty v. Brady that had set a precedent. The Court ruled that a fair trial is a necessary right as stated in the Constitution, and, therefore, a court-appointed attorney must be provided in cases which the defense cannot provide an attorney for his/her self.

This decision was a monumental one and is a decision that I agree with because the Court did not extend the rights of the Constitution in any strange way; it simply declared that, in order to have a fair trial, the defense must have the means to defend him/her self. This case set a huge precedent in terms of judiciary process and, in my opinion, has made the United States a much more fair place. 

This clip from YouTube provides the background and the surrounding details that would make the case of Gideon v. Wainwright and contains some interesting footage.

While he was in prison, Gideon sent in a handwritten petition, called a in forma pauperis, to the Supreme Court for appeal.

Miranda v. Arizona

The Supreme Court case of Miranda v. Arizona is perhaps among the top most monumental Supreme Court cases and decisions in the history of America. Ernesto Miranda, a convicted kidnapper and rapist was arrested by police officers and submitted to two hours of interrogation, during which signed a written confession, disclosing the crimes he had committed, all without knowing his rights or having them read to him. He was found guilty, and he appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that his Fifth Amendment rights had been violated. The Supreme Court decided in favor of Miranda by a vote of 5 to 4, with Chief Justice Earl Warren writing for the majority opinion. The Court stated that a prosecutor could not use a statement "stemming from custodial interrogation of the defendant unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the privilege against self-incrimination."

I agree wholeheartedly with the Supreme Court's decision on this case because it has been mandated for every single arrest since then. It is essential that every person knows the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution, and if they don't, then they should be told those rights when their freedom and their lives are in jeopardy.

The YouTube video below explains the rights established by the case of Miranda v. Arizona and takes a skeptical, questioning point of view with regards to the decision of the case. The narrator argues that the case may or may not have been directly in the Constitution, yet, I believe that the judicial branch of government, specifically the U.S. Supreme Court, has the right and ability to interpret the laws of the Constitution and establish precedents from their interpretations.


The Fifth Amendment guarantees trial by a Grand Jury, guarantees due process and does not allow for double jeopardy and unwarranted search and seizures. Specifically with respect to this case, the Fifth Amendment guarantees that "no person...shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself."

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke

The U.C. Davis Medical School used a special type of admissions process to determine which of its applicants should be admitted. In 1973, it had reserved 16 of 100 spots at the medical school for minority or disadvantaged students. Alan Bakke, one of the white applicants to the U.C. Davis Medical School was denied admission even though his MCAT and other test scores were higher than those of the other 84, regular applicants admitted. He took this case to court and, on appeal, the California Supreme Court fell in favor of Bakke and demanded that he be admitted and, in retaliation, the regents appealed to the Supreme Court. In a 5-4 split, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bakke, proclaiming that the admissions program at the university violated the equal protection clause and was not constitutional, even though it said that there were ways of creating a special admissions program that is constitutional. The majority opinion of the Court asserted that the Fourteenth Amendment, although created to create equality for blacks, does not specify race, and demands equality.

In my opinion, the Court's ruling was very fair and reasonable in this major case. People should not obtain unfair advantages over others because of their race or beliefs or anything, and all people should be seen as equals, unless there are special circumstances surrounding a certain person in specific that should be considered. Universities should admit the best of all applicants, rather than separate white applicants from other applicants and admit that way.

There were very few YouTube videos about this Supreme Court case so, again, I went to the site CaseBriefs to obtain a greater understanding of the case. CaseBriefs provides a good overall summary of  Regents of the University of Calfiornia v. Bakke and the decision of the case, and the piece on this case summarizes the rule established by the case as follows:

Race-based classifications, for purposes of school admissions, are constitutional. The use of racial-quotas, however, is unconstitutional.

As I have stated before, I side with the Supreme Court's decision that Fourteenth Amendment, although it was created to create equality for blacks, is not termed in a way that aims the rights it declares as specifically for blacks. The amendment puts no specific terms on the equality it declares, therefore, all races must be considered equal in order to abide by the Constitution.

Miller v. California

The Supreme Court case of Miller v. California was between Marvin Miller, the head of a large "adult" film and literature business, and the state of California. Miller sent out unrequested advertisements that contained explicit photographs to various people, promoting his adult books and films. Miller argued that he was protected under the Constitution because of his rights to freedom of speech and freedom of the press, but the Court stated that "states have a legitimate interest in prohibiting dissemination or exhibition of obscene material." In a 5-4 ruling, the Court decided in California's favor.

In my opinion, Miller, in some respects, invaded the privacy of the people who he mailed his "adult" advertisements to because a majority of people would not want to see these advertisements, nor would they want their children or other young people to see these explicit advertisements. In addition, there must be some limit on the rights in the Constitution that can be controlled by the states because unlimited freedom of speech, such as the distribution of obscene advertisements, can cause uprise, protests and instability.

The site CaseBriefs provides good background and abstracts of ridiculously long Supreme Court cases such as Miller v. California. CaseBriefs explains the viewpoint of the majority opinion of the Court that:

In determining whether speech is obscene, the basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be: (a) whether “the average person, applying contemporary community standards” would find the material, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest of sex, (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law, and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literacy, artistic, political, or scientific value.

These were the new guidelines established for statutes regulating offensive material. These three guidelines, in essence, state that something is obscene if either the average person would find it lustful, or if it shows something, such as sex, in an offensive way, or if it lacks higher values.

Plessy v. Ferguson

As the Civil Rights Movement was gaining momentum during the Jim Crow era of America, a man by the name of Homer Adolph Plessy decided to take a stand for equality. Plessy challenged a Louisiana law that mandated "separate but equal accommodation for the white and colored races." "Separate but equal" was a standard everywhere in America at that time, and Plessy's case was the biggest challenge of this standard at that point. Plessy, as an activist, volunteered to fight for equality. He went and sat on the white section of a train in Louisiana, and, when the ticket collector of the train came to collect Plessy's ticket, Plessy, who looked white, revealed to the ticket collector that he was one-eighth black, and was then asked to sit in the colored section of the train. Plessy refused, was arrested, and his case was brought to the Supreme Court. The court decided in favor of Louisiana Judge Ferguson and enforced the standard of "separate but equal," asserting that

The decision of the court was consistent with the majority views of society at the time, and, in my opinion, was correctly decided considering the fairly weak argument that Plessy presented, but, was an incorrect ruling according to the laws in the Constitution. I feel that the highest level of the judicial branch of the United States should take into consideration not only the argument that is presented, but also the laws of the United States that may have not been presented in an argument, and I believe that the Supreme Court failed to do this in Plessy v. Ferguson.

This latter part of this clip details the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, and, if you can get past the narrator's accent, this video provides a very nice background and coverage of this case. This provided  a nice overall picture of the case and was one of the few videos on YouTube of the case that was well-rounded and fully informative.


Justice Brown labels Plessy's reasoning that separate cannot be equal as a fallacy because Brown asserted that the segregation laws "do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other." Brown argued that separate but equal can and does mean separate and equal.

United States v. Nixon

The Nixon administration on the whole was responsible for many missteps and grave errors, but the administration also was very effective and capable in some respects. One giant misstep came in 1974, during the then president's reelection campaign that essentially cost him his presidency. Burglars broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at Watergate and stole documents in order to help Nixon get reelected. The U.S. Department of Justice hired an investigator to take on this issue and it was revealed that tapes were missing, and Nixon refused to return them, claiming that he possessed executive privilege. In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that Nixon must hand over the tapes for further investigation and that his claimed use of executive privilege would have been a monopoly on power and would have cancelled out the checks and balances that the judicial branch had over the executive branch.

The court did an excellent job handling this case as one of the first cases of a president trying to extend his powers past the Constitution. I side with the court's decision and I, too, believe that once the president declares that he has the right to hide things from other branches of government, he has gone too far.

This video is the first part of President Nixon's resignation after he was confronted in the case of U.S. v Nixon. Instead of waiting to be impeached and forcibly removed from office, Nixon, knowing that an impeachment and removal was coming, decided to resign, and avoided being the first president to be impeached and then removed from office.


President Nixon's claim of executive privilege might have been properly asserted had the tapes contained very classified and volatile information that would cause public outcry and rebellion either within the United States or internationally. Nixon refusing to return the stolen tapes demonstrates a lack of morals and ethics on his part and serves as an insufficient cover for his own wrongdoings.

Roe v. Wade

Jane Roe, a 21 year-old with a baby on the way, brought a lawsuit against the district attorney of Dallas County, Texas when she could not get an abortion. The Supreme Court sided with Roe in a 7-2 decision because the justices felt that the case and Roe's argument concerned the First, Fourth, Ninth, and, as Roe had stated in her argument, the Fourteenth Amendments. Roe wanted to establish the right for a woman to obtain an abortion in the cases that the pregnancy was unwanted, like in cases of rape, and the court sided with her.

In my opinion, as extrapolated from the rights established in the United States Constitution, a woman should have the right to choose because there might be circumstances surrounding the pregnancy that might make a difficult life for the baby and for the parents. In addition, as the the Supreme Court had stated in the explanation of their decision, a fetus in its mother has not developed mentally and physically enough to be considered a person that is covered under the Constitution.

This clip gives some background on the case and viewpoints from various people on the subject. This clip has hints of pro-life, yet on the whole provides a generally unbiased coverage of the case.


As displayed at the end of this YouTube video, Jane Roe never performed the abortion that she fought so hard to obtain the rights for and today, she serves as a pro-life, anti-abortion activist because she explains that she has developed a closer connection with God and now sees the truth and the "horror" of abortion.

Not Going to College May Be Better Than Using a Credit Card?

I will be going to college next year and I have to worry about paying off loans that I will take on in order to pay for my tuition for at least four years of my college education, and, most likely, four, or more, years of college education after that. This would not worry as much if I did not know about this surprising statistic that student loan debt has now surpassed credit card loan debt. The amount of money for college tuition has grown so much in the last few years that now . It may be taking it too far by saying that not going to college may be a better decision than not using a credit card, but this certainly shows us the troubling circumstances in today's America. On top of the increasingly greater education required for getting a job, the tuition for the education and the costs for college is also increasing.

Cuts to Education Despite Obama's Words

The budget for 2011-2012 has been a heated issue for both Republicans and Democrats. The United States came close to its second government shutdown because the two parties had been unable to decide on a budget that would suit them both. Today, April 12, 2011, the Republicans gave in to some of the demands of the Democrats instead of stubbornly pushing for their own way, an attitude that has been recently exhibited by the Democrats. In an earlier post, I explained how President Obama had declared cuts to education for the next budget as something he will not allow because cutting from the education portion of the budget would be cutting from the future of America and cutting possibly an expansion of the economy. According to Ben Wolfgang of the Washington Times in his article titled "Education cuts coming, but fewer than GOP wanted," the two parties finally agreed on a budget, but there were some cuts to education, despite Obama's declaration that education is untouchable for the 2011-2012 budget:

The final spending deal struck by the White House and congressional leaders spares the Education Department the deeper cuts sought by House Republicans, according to the agreement reached Friday. Under the compromise - the details of which started trickling out late Monday night - the popular Pell Grant and pre-kindergarten Head Start programs are preserved, as is funding for the administration’s Race to the Top initiative.

Other Education Department programs weren’t so lucky, with funding reduced for about two dozen programs, though many of the multimillion-dollar cuts already had been proposed by President Obama in his 2011 spending plan.

 Both parties had to come to some sort of a compromise, with the Republicans getting fewer cuts to the budget, particularly the education portion of the budget, and with the Democrats having to deal with more cuts than they wanted to the education portion of the budget.

Obama Attacks Inequalities in Education

Partially in an early attempt to seek votes for his reelection in 2012 and partially as a minority himself, President Barack Obama spoke about inequalities in education and to inspire more and greater achievements by African-Americans and other minority parties at the 20th anniversary Reverend Al Sharpton's National Action Network. Helene Cooper highlights the important points of the president's speech in her article in the New York Times entitled "Obama Takes Aim at Inequality in Education." 

“Too many of our kids are dropping out of schools,” Mr. Obama told a mostly black audience in the ballroom of the Sheraton New York Hotel in Manhattan. “That’s not a white, black or brown problem. That’s everybody’s problem.”

Despite what he said, Obama's speech at the event was primarily focused on gathering and unifying his African-American base for his reelection campaign for 2012. African-Americans represent a large portion of the country's population, and Obama needs to get back in touch with them in order to garner their support. Obama also emphasized education and achievement in his speech in order to establish that he wants to equalize the generally African-American graduation rates with those of other populations of people in America who tend to have higher graduation, success and achievement rates.

Cell Phones Disrupting Education

The article in the San Francisco Chronicle titled "Bangladesh to teachers: No cellphones in classroom" explains yet another instance of technology, cell phones specifically, disturbing education:

Fed up with educators receiving — and even making — phone calls during their own lectures, Bangladesh's Education Ministry has banned them from bringing their phones into class as well.

The use of cell phones for students had already been taken away for schools in Bangladesh, but that was not enough to eliminate cell phone disturbances in classrooms. Teachers were found spending time on their cell phones now, and they had to ban the use completely in the classrooms. Even though technology can and is of great use in the classroom for teaching purposes, there must be a limit as to how much and when the technology is used. Cell phones provide little to no productive use in the classrooms and banning them in all classrooms would definitely improve education. We are still grappling with how to productively and beneficially intertwine technology, with all of its uses, into classroom learning, but once we do, education will become very effective and easy.