Blog Stage Eight: Comment on a colleague's work #2

 I read Samantha’s commentary and it was interesting to me. Samantha’s commentary was about the transportation in Austin. I agree with her opinion which transportation would decrease the air pollution and heavy traffics in Austin. If people use more public transportation than their own cars, emission that came out from automobile and major cause of air pollution will be diminished a lot. People would use subway if it will install in Austin because using subway is way cheaper and more efficient than driving own car. Last year, 2016, was the hottest year since 1880 and it mostly human-caused climate global warming. Therefore, we should realize the seriousness of environmental pollution and take an action of solving pollution problems. Also, increasing of public transportation will solve terrible traffics. I really enjoyed her commentary. Thank you.

Stage Seven: Original editorial or commentary #2

resource: Fight over disposal of fetal remains will head to trial

Abortion laws have been a fickle subject of much debate amongst Texans for quite a while. However, a specific part of the abortion law concerning fetal disposal methods have been hotly disputed when the law itself was supposed to be put in effect on December 16, 2016. The main conflict point at hand is the argument over whether fetal tissues are considered as human remains or not. Based on this argument, it might impose a requirement from current fetal disposal into sanitary landfills to mandatory cremation or burials. All of this stems from the core argument of whether or not fetal remains should be treated humanely after abortion.

The main problems are not all based in ethics as cremation and burial requires additional expenses for which who the payer is, is still being disputed in the law. The cost estimation is coming out at about $400 to $700. My take is that fetal remains should be considered as human lives and should be treated as such. In terms of economic impacts, the law could allow mass cremation or burials, which were estimated at $0.60 per patient, offering solutions for possible additional costs. However, I do believe these additional costs should not serve as a deterrent for people that wants to have an abortion. Although this might cause additional health care coverage questions as well as opening up questions on ethics and morality, I strongly believe the state should have a hand in providing for abortion patients.

           
            Perhaps requiring patients to be prompted on whether they care about the fetal remains and whether they should be treated humanely, or not care at all. For those that do not care about the outcome of the fetal remains, mass cremation and burials can be provided by the states for the hospitals or third-party as $0.60 is a manageable economic cost that the state can and should burden for the sake of ethics on fetal lives. 

Blog Stage Six: Comment on a colleague's work #1

     On Ridhi Patel’s blog, I read commentary about a gun on a college campus and I decided to make comment on this. Since Texas allow people who have the licence to hold firearms for defending themselves, many citizens included me were frightened and worried about their who do not have gun license safety. College is the place where students can study whenever they want and develop their dream and knowledge. However, if guns are allowed to carry on campus will terrify students and college could not be the safe place for studying anymore.

     I think a gun is not the best choice to keep individual's safety and like Ridhi said pepper spray could be the good self-defense stuff. Beside pepper spray, there are many self-defense goods on sale in the market so gun should not be allowed on campus. For me, I often go to the library for studying and I would not concentrate on my work if I keep thinking that someone is carrying a gun and this person could present nearby me. Therefore, I agree that gun must not allow on the college campus at least college for the majority of students.

Stage Five: Original editorial or commentary #1

     On Marche 28^th, proponents of tobacco products, especially the vapor shop owners, are testifying against a bill that would effectively raise the smoking age from 18 to 21. There are many pros and cons to both sides of the argument that will determine if Texas will join two other states to raise their smoking age over 19.

            

      I believe the Texas government should be the third state to raise the legal smoking age above the age from 18 to 21 years of age. Just from a basic ethical standpoint, it is indisputable that smoking is detrimental to one’s health. Although raising the smoking age only delays the eventuality of smoking for some, the age of 18 to 21 still proves to be a developmental stage for bodies of young men and women. Also, it would be hard to argue against the health benefits of 3 years of delayed start in smoking.

            

       From a political standpoint, the main argument for raising the smoking age would be the estimated $406 million in savings for health care costs over 5 years—equating to approximately $5.6 billion in savings over 25 years as found by the Department of State Health Services (per DallasNews). Tobacco products have also proved to be a preventable cause of cancer that kills more people than alcohol, AIDS, illegal drugs, car crashes, murders, and suicides combined in Texas yearly as stated by Dr. Ganesh, a proponent of the bill that would raise the legal age of smoking.

            

       The basic arguments against not raising the legal age would be that the revenues from taxing tobacco products would be a big loss. However, it is estimated at $64 million in tax revenue savings, which is not enough to overcome the savings from health care. Not only does the savings from health care outweigh the loss in tax revenue, the immeasurable lives that would be spared from less smoking outweighs any argument for not raising the smoking age. It would be wise to not put short-term gains in tax revenue over ethical as well as long-term health care savings that would result from raising the smoking age.

Background article: Vapor shop owners and doctors go head-to-head during hearing to raise smoking age to 21

Stage 4: Critique an editorial or commentary from a Texas blog

On March 10^th, 2017 the author, Larry Elder posted an opinion title "Obamacare can't be 'fixed’" on Texas Insider blog. Republican argued that Obamacare must not just be repealed but “replaced”. Larry targeted Republican people, Doctors, and citizens who get benefits from some features of Obamacare; that insurance carriers must allow parents to keep their “children” under their insurance plans until age of 26; and that insurance companies cannot drop people under any circumstances because Trump’s replacing plan included those the most popular features of Obamacare. He claimed that number of doctors are decreasing because of tighten regulations but an aging population, people need more doctors. He showed strong evidence by a quote of Mark Perry, a professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan and an American Enterprise Institute scholar, about decreasing numbers of doctor per 100,000 Americans. He also mentioned that some problems of tighten regulation. Lastly, he exclaimed that yet when it came to nearly one-seventh of our economy — health care — we ignored our own advice. For health care, we don’t write ourselves the proper prescription. I do not agree with his opinion about loosening regulations even though it prevented would-be doctors from entering the field because I think quality over quantity so doctors must be a profession who fully learned and completely licensed because it directly related to patients’ life. I think if less-schooled and less-credentialed paraprofessionals will do things that only licensed doctors can now do, mistakes and errors on patients’ can increase. 

On Wednesday, Feb 22, 2017, The Dallas Morning News published an editorials titled “Republicans' repeal of gun restriction for mentally ill exposes hypocrisy”

The editor targeted republican people and spoke to people who has chance to exposed by gun violence claims because there are more than 33,000 lives every year but restrict on gun purchases is not clear.

The editor posted diagram about partisan view of gun proposal which survey conducted from Pew Research Center on July 14-20, 2015. The source showed that both Republican and Democrat highly agree on Laws to prevent mentally ill from buying guns. However, earlier this month, both houses of the Republican-led Congress voted to undo a new rule aimed at improving the accuracy of the federal database used for instant background checks already required by law.

An editor said “lawmakers worked overtime to show fealty to a dangerous absolutism about the Second Amendment” in the last paragraph and it impacted on me because I thought and editor touched the core of the problem. The one thing that I wanted to know was the percentage of the gun violence by mentally ill people because it could more support an editor’s claim about why Republican’s act is hypocrisy.

 I liked that editor showed diagram because it was easy to recognize the percentage of partisan view of gun proposal. Also, editor used quote of Justice Antonin Scalia, author of the most powerful articulation of Second Amendment rights in our history. I think an editor showed clear evidences and credibility about claim by providing an diagram and quote from expert. I agree with author about the restriction on gun purchase by mentally ill and not proper act of Republican.

On Tue, Feb 7, 2017, the Texas Observer published an article titled Dan Patrick Invokes Bathroom Bill at Prayer Rally, Spars With Business Group Over Economic Impact. This article is written by John Wright and it is talking about speech of Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick at Prayer Rally about bathroom bill. Patrick highlighted that on Friday, PolitiFact Texas, a media fact-checking service gave a “mostly false” rating to a Texas Association of Business (TAB) study that concluded that the bathroom bill could cost the state up to $8.5 billion and 185,000 jobs. Patrick said “If we are true Christians we pray for them, because all of us have been in the darkness.” I think this article awaken the importance of information coherence. People needs to know how LGBT related law flows in Texas government and voice our opinions.