The $350 Honk

In New York City, horn-blowing has been an increasingly large problem. Everyone who has ever been to any city, let alone New York, knows that the amount of car horns that you hear is quite unecessary. It has become a way of expressing anger, instead of being used as a warning or alarm to other drivers. One taxi driver in New York City got so fed up with the amount of honking that he sent out a text to 13,000 New York City taxi drivers to "lay off the horn." It appears to be a good idea, but other drivers have fired back saying that it is very hard to drive a taxi for 10 hours a day in one of the busiest cities in the world without using some sort of horn to get attention from others around them. The $350 Honk refers to a law that was passed that charges drivers $350 for unnecessary honking. However, while this law seems to be a good idea, it really has no way of being enforced.

The author of this source seems to show no sort of bias or anything of the sort in this article. He simply provides the facts and a few examples of what has been done to try to eliminate the use of unnecessary honking in the city. He uses first-hand reports from drivers to show how angering it can be to drive in the city, both when having to honk and when being honked at. There are obviously some times when a honk can be used, but the author explains how there are many examples of people honking for other reasons, and uses the anger from New York City drivers to truly drive his point home.

Why Inequality in America is Even Worse Than You Thought

In recent studies, the United States has been slipping in the ranks of developed countries throughout the world. This article focuses on how the top 1% of the population has grown more wealthy in past years, while the rest of the population has dropped further off and detached from that 1%. Over the past 30 years, the income of the top 1% of households has increased 275%, while the rest of the nation has only increased anywhere between 15% and 40%. These numbers seem to truly show how badly our nation is separated. The poor are struggling in the streets, while the rich continue to grow wealthier and wealthier. This separation is an enormous problem in our society, and has contributed to us dropping in the Social Justice Index to 27th out of 31 developed nations (Salon.com). Overall, these numbers seem to show that we are not as well off as we appear to be.

While reading this article, I realized that the author, Justin Elliot, really is astonished by some of the information that he discovered. He appears to be disappointed with how the United States is going, and expresses this disappointment at numerous points in his article. He uses these percentages and graphs to drive his point home that we are struggling as a nation, and these statistics are primarily used to show that something must be done in order to keep up from falling any further in the rankings.

The Mystery of Left-Handedness

Being a "lefty" this story first appealed to me for many reasons. One, I had heard that there were rumors about left-handed people, and I had also heard that they are said to have had a shorter life-span on average. I also wanted to know how these rumors came to be, as they sound pretty ridiculous. It says in the article that lefties have a life span 9 years shorter on average than righties. It also said that most of the lefties in the world are gone by their forties. These numbers seem a little suspicious, as it seems insane that people would die younger just because they write with the other hand. How could such a simple difference lead to such dramatic results? It all just seems a little far-fetched to me to be true.

By writing this article, Rik Smits puts many of the myths and rumors to the test. He proves that there really are no advantages or disadvantages that come from which hand you write with. When writing this article, Smits use's jokes and dialogue that show how insane some of the rumors are. "Have you heard...Caroline's got LH."(Salon.com) This dialogue was used to show how weird it would be for someone to get worked up about being left handed. It simply just doesn't make sense.

How Cell Phone Cameras Shape OWS

Protestors from Occupy Wall Street have hit the streets recently with their picket-signs high. However, it is not what they are protesting that is interesting, it is how they are gaining attention. Granted there are many people who see them on the streets, but even more people see them on the internet, with the help of a few technological devices. Protesters are using their cell phones to shoot videos of certain acts or ideas that the protesters want to convey, and they post them for the world to see. In fact, Fox News had interviewed one of the protesters, but did not show it on the news because they felt that it hadn't gone the way they had hoped. But, what Fox didn't know was that there was a cell phone on the scene, and that video was soon on the internet for the whole world to see. Seemingly, this idea is very creative. As stated in the article, there are more cellphones in the United States than there are human beings (Salon.com). Obviously, the protesters at Occupy Wall Street have caught onto this information and used it to their advantage.

Joshua Holland, the author of this article, seems very informed when writing this article. It even seems as if he has been at the scene of the protests, as he incorporates numerous first-person reports from the area, and voices their arguments with their own dialogue. However, because this article is mostly quotations, it is impossible to determine if there is any bias in this article, since holland rarely voices his own opinion. Nevertheless, he is able to convey the freedom that the protesters feel knowing that their ideas are reaching the mainstream.

Palin Takes the Easy Way Out

How could anyone forget the 2012 republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska? In a way, no one can. She has remained in the headlines for years since the 2008 election because of her statements about whether or not she would make a go at the 2012 presidential election. However, recent comments by Palin have stated that she will not run for President, causing many people to be outraged by the hype that has been going on around her. She has built up the suspense about whether or not she would run simply to stay in the headlines, and oddly enough it has worked. I mean, come on, has there really ever been a single week since the 2008 election where Sarah Palin hasn't been in the news? However, this decision not to run may have saved-face for the governor. In recent polls, Palin only had a favorable rating of 44% with Republican voters, and 22% overall (Salon.com). Sure these seem like decent numbers, but in the last poll released before she announced her decision, Palin only had 10% in the GOP race, placing her fourth among candidates. Palin probably saw these numbers and thought that the best way to "save-face" was to withdraw and find another way to remain in the headlines.

Steve Kornacki does a pretty good job of detailing the specifics of this piece, but he also has a lot of bias statements that show his unfavorable opinion of Palin herself. He quotes reporters that are angry at the governor for creating all the hype and then simply deciding not to run, allowing myself to believe that he too is angry at the hype that she brought on. In addition, Kurnacki ends his article by stating that,"If she had decided to run now, Palin might have been out of our lives within in a few months. Instead, she'll be with us for years and years to come" (Salon.com). Obviously this statement shows his dislike of the governor and how he is upset at how her rouse had kept in the headlines, and will continue to keep her there for a long long time.

My Mother Never Worked Journal

"My Mother Never Worked" was s narrative story that posed a difficult question to answer. The story told of a mother of eight children who spent her entire life working in the home supporting her family. Every day from the minute she woke up to the minute she fell asleep, she worked at countless tasks throughout the household. And yet, when she dies, her children do not receive a Social Security benefits check because the benefits lawyer explained how, "your mother never worked."

Nowadays there are countless mom's that stay home all day to do housework and care for their children. Sure, this is a big responsibility, and I am in no way down grading stay-at-home moms for not being considered "wage earners" in this case, but it is a fact that they do not put in to the social security fund. Because of this fact, it seems logical that homemakers who have never been wage earners should not receive a Social Security Benefits check after their death. In many cases, there are households where both parents go out and work an 8 hour work day, and come home and still have to do all the tasks that a stay-at-home mom does throughout the entire day. And as they work, some of their pay check is taken out to go into the Social Security fund that is presently struggling to survive. I'm not saying that they aren't very hard working  individuals, but why should they receive my money that I put in when I'm working 9:00-5:00 5 days a week. It just doesn't seem logical.