Blog 8: Response

       I stumbled upon Lee Mitchell's commentary, "Should the drinking age be lowered again?" I agree with his argument. What's the difference between being able to drink at 21 and not at 18? Once you turn 18, you're an adult and as an adult, you should be able to do whatever you'd like, and that includes drinking. As Mr. Mitchell said, "At 18 you are old enough to vote, get married, make your own economic decisions, and even be prosecuted as an adult," If you have the right to make those decisions at the age of 18, then you should have the right to legally consume alcohol.
 

More Helicopters, Fewer Troops to Patrol Border

I found an article on the Texas Tribune and It talks about removing most of the National Guard troops from the southern boarder. They federal government says they'll be removing about 900 National Guard troops, leaving them with about 300, in place of surveillance helicopters for a more aerial strategy. Border congressmen Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, and Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, both strongly agree with this decision because it's cost-effective and efficient. I agree with them as well. Now that we have the, OH-58 Kiowa helicopters, UH-72 Lakota helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, such as the RC-26, we don't really need that many National Guard troops out there anyway. We have technology and we need to use them to make it more effective. If any of the aerial helicopters spot anything suspicious, then they'll deploy the troops in that area. It's a good thing that we're decreasing the number of troops. We don't need to spend that much money on bringing in more troops. Now that we have these helicopters, they can see everything that's happening, where it's happening and once they see some activity, they'll just deploy National Guard troops and they'll take care of it. With the technology we have today, we need to use them to our own advantage.

RE:The ban of cell phone while driving

In my classmate's blog, the author discusses why using your cell phone, while driving is dangerous. I have to agree with the author 100 percent. I don't think anyone, no matter how good of a driver you are, should be talking or texting while driving. They're endangering everyone in their paths. It shouldn't matter how fast you're driving either, because you could still injure someone or even end someone's life. The state of Texas should ban all use of cell phones, while operating a motorized vehicle immediately. In my opinion, with this new law, like the author said, we would see a significant change in motor vehicle accidents.

HOAs prevents drying your clothes outside

Everyone should be allowed to line dry their clothes. Line drying means that you don't put your clothes inside a drying machine. Instead you hang your clothes on a clothesline and let the sun dry it up. According to this article, HOA or Homeowners Association, can give you a fine for doing so. I don't see any reason why the public would be fined for doing such a crime. It's not harming anyone or anything. In fact, it's a good thing because you're not using up your electricity. You're saving yourself money from the electric bills. During the times where drying machines weren't invented yet, people would hang their clothes outside and just let the sun or wind dry it up. It's not fair that the public get fined for doing something that doesn't harm anything. There are some people who are not doing so well financially and need to save some money. They have no other choice, than not to use drying machine, and have to line dry their clothes. Not many people dry their clothes outside anymore because drying machines save you time. The government needs to do something about this fine, because it's not fair for the people who want to dry their clothes the old fashioned way or save some money for their families. According to the article, the author states that Florida, Utah, Maine, Vermont, Colorado and Hawaii approve families for line drying. I agree and support that the state of Texas too, needs to join that group.

Plastic bag ban?

I found an editorial on the American Statesmen website. This article talks about how "single-use" plastic bags, could be banned and intends to the public. We're talking about the plastic bags everyone uses whenever they go grocery shopping. The author's argument is whether we should ban plastic bags or not. The problem with plastic bags is that it makes everything difficult, because it tangles with the sorting machines. It would cost way too much money to pay workers to physically remove thousands and thousands of bags.
There is an idea of how to solve this problem that would change the mindset of the ban and I agree when the author says, "If, however, all those individual plastic bags came to TDS packed inside a stronger, more durable plastic stuff bag, they would be easier to pull from the recycling stream and more manageable to store and bundle."
 In my opinion, this seems somewhat reasonable because it's much easier to recycle and it doesn't cause any problems sorting out the materials. But I think the public might find it a little bizarre having to put their plastic bags inside another stronger bag. I believe we should have a separate container just for plastic bags. Just like we have separate containers for our trash and our recyclables. We would just set the plastic bag containers curbside, how we normally would do for our trashcans. That way we won't have to waste money on those more durable and stronger plastic bags for our bags. It would seem much more reasonable that way.

Save Water

I read an editorial on the Dallas News website named "Dallas must conserve more water"

and found it quite interesting. This article is talking about how the community in Dallas and most other cities are cutting back on the use of water. Dallas' main reservoirs, Ray Roberts, Ray Hubbard, Grapevine, Tawakoni, Lewisville and Lake Fork are out of water. The City Council initiated the city of Dallas to the Stage 1 alert, which means that the public must be aware of how much water they are using.The goal of Stage Alert 1 is to get a five percent reduction per gallons a day. They demand that the community should not water for more than twice in a week. The City Council came up with an idea that residents and businesses whose addresses that end in an even number can water on Sundays and Thursdays. While the other half ending in odd numbers are allowed to water on Saturdays and Wednesdays. They cannot however water between 10am and 6pm. I think we have it easy because in other cities like Allen and Forney, they only get to water twice a month.

This is leaned towards the residents and businesses in Dallas, Austin, Allen, Forney and many other cities in Texas.

I agree with this because we need to step up and do something about this drought. 

There is no idea of knowing when this lack of water will come to an end, but the best thing we can do is to be vigilant and conserve as much water as we can.

Texas Educators

I found an interesting article on the New York Times website under the Texas Tribune. This article talks about Texas educators encouraging students like us, to pursue two-year college degrees ( associates ).  It says, “Students throughout Texas are amassing college credits without knowing whether they will lead to employment, and many face serious debt when they graduate.”  I think this article is worth reading because there are many students just like me trying to get a degree of their profession. However, so many degrees fall in the lines of two years and four years, you never know if you can land a job or not…because the length of your degree might not even matter.