Commentary two

I agree with Shannen on her article about Free Birth Control. Like in her article says, Texas has been ranked 5 out 51 on 2011 final teen births rates among female aged 15-19. This is bad, and now not being able to get free birth control is even worst. A 18 year teenager might not be able to provide the money to pay for birth control. I agree with Shannen on the fact that if Texas was able to provide free birth control for women or maybe any kind of help to not pay so much for birth control, it wouldn't be one of the highest states on teen pregnancy rates. This way we will be able to prevent many unwanted pregnancies and many abortions like she talks about in her article. Now what makes people think that a teenager are financially stable to have a kid when they can't afford birth control. Texas needs to do something and provide all women free birth control. Also in a couple of weeks I have an appointment with my doctor and I was thinking of getting birth control, but after reading this article I am a little bit worry about how much I'm going to pay.

Commentary

I agree with Hunters argument about the new form of standardized testing, is not working out so much like they thought it would. Hunter argues about how the new procedure STAAR test replaced TASK test but it isn't any better. With this new procedure it was supposed to help limit all the number of standardized tests the students had to take each year but it did not help at all. Students are still in need of taking this test, like the mid-year benchmark test. I agree with hunter on the fact that all this standardized  test take time away from students and teachers. Students are losing out on education because they have to worry about passing one exam per class each year. Hunter gives a great example of this, elementary students instead of having a weekly spelling test or something similar to this they now have STAAR boot camp to help them prepare for the test. I also have a personal experience from my little brothers, when they had to take the STAAR test they spend about two weeks preparing for the test and when it came to the day of the test, they still didn't feel confident about it. They talked about all the time it was taking away from them, and also said they felt it was worst than the TAKS test. They need to do something about this and actually make it a better procedure, they need to help kids with their education in a better way than this.

Stop The Texting

Texting while driving is one of the many causes of wrecks and deaths on the road. It is a big problem in all states. Cell phone technology is a big problem, more for teenagers. Teenagers use cell phones to text, call friends and more, while driving and they pay zero attention and accidents occur just for a stupid simple text message. About 24 percent of all motor vehicle crashes involves cell phone use. In 2011, 1.3 million vehicular crashes were linked to people using their cell phones. This is a very serious problem and in the past a teen was killed when she rolled her pick up truck while she was sending a text so they named a bill after her, Lubbock. Which ban texting while driving, giving a $100 fine. But Government Rick Perry vetoed the bill because he said texting while driving was a personal experience. 
I do not agree with what governor Perry did at all but now Attorney General Greg Abbot who is front-runner for governor opposes a statewide ban on texting while driving and it goes for all Texans. I totally agree with this, we need to do something to stop this big problem before many more people die, if they need to give higher fines they should, if we need higher punishments we should it’s better than having more deaths. For example maybe they can give them hours of community service, or maybe attend a class that teaches the consequences about what could happen when texting and driving. No matter what, we need to stop this and the government needs to act fast before we loose more innocent lives.

I totally agree with the author of Texas. Here We Come on his argument about the government needing to do something to stop people from texting while driving. It argues about how many deaths and people have gotten so many tickets for breaking the law of texting while driving. Teenagers need to understand how dangerous this is. He gives greats examples to back up everything, like the teenager that died while texting and how many people have gotten tickets for breaking the law and how much has it increase. I know the government already did something by making this illegal but this is not working, I agree with his argument about how the government should create an app or something that would automatically turn off the cell phones as soon as the driver starts driving. I say that’s a good idea, trying something new might really be helpful, it makes a really good point. Also I would like to add that texting while driving can not only hurt the people that are doing it, but they can actually hurt someone else or even take innocents lives away.

Legalize the Green Stuff

Marijuana is already legal in some states like California, Colorado, and Washington and many more. Why not Texas? Texas is a very conservative state, it has been against the legalization of Marijuana for years. But why not try something new? Marijuana can be use for medical reason, in a article written by Antwanise Jackson it gives examples of how Marijuana can help people from suffering seizures and as well as treat glaucoma patients. Also with the help of Marijuana they formed a drug named dronabinol that helps patients with HIV and AIDS by increasing their appetite and stop losing weight.
Also by keeping Marijuana illegal we have had millions of drug related arrests and about 70 percent of those were dealing with Marijuana. The state is spending much more money on fighting against drugs, like processing and prosecutions of drug related arrests that they forget about other many more important things.
In another article written by Jaleesa Baulkman I found that legalizing Marijuana would not increase the crime rate like many people think. In this article it shows that when these states Alaska, California, Hawaii, Montana and many more were legalized crimes like, homicide, rape, robbery and burglary did not increase at all. If the increase of Marijuana crimes is not the fact that they use the drug and go do stupid things but the fact that is illegal. In 2013, 59 percent of drug possession arrests in Texas were for possession, so legalizing Marijuana will actually make the crime rate drop.

Lets All Get Drunk

I am writing my critique on a blog from Grits For Breakfast. The article is titled Austin may follow Houston, SA, creating non-jail alternative for public intoxication, authors name Grits. The article talks about reducing arrest for public intoxication by creating a place for people to sober up without taking them to jail.
The grits starts his article agreeing with another article in Austin Statesman Newspaper written by Eric Dexheimer and Tony Plohetski who says that getting arrested and criminally charged with public intoxication in Travis County is a common thing on Sixth Street and soon it might stop. In this article the evidence they use to support this idea is that over the past five years they have had about 27,000 arrests in Austin and they are taken to jail, have their mug shots taken, fingerprinted and face future court hearings and costs. They want this to stop so many medical officials, law enforcement and more want to open a sobriety center “drunk tank” which they believe it would decriminalize public intoxication.
By this plan they plan not to arrest the intoxicated suspects but just take them to the center which Grit’s agrees because they believe this way the police officers would get back to their duties more rapidly and attend for more serious offences. Also Grits uses another good evidence from the Statesman who tells the opinion of a Travis County-at-Law Judge Nancy Hogengarten, who believes that people actually recognize that the substance use is a problem in the community, but putting them in jail doesn't solve the problem. At the end Grits agrees with this idea and the last evidence they give are the examples of Houston who opened a similar sobriety center and how San Antonio has operated one since 2008 so it wont be the first time they ever do this.
The author gives some good evidence in their blog but mainly just from one source which I don’t like. They are very good points, but he could use more than one, get more evidence and examples from other people. Also I am not sure if I agree with Grits, its sounds good but also if you think about it, it gives more rights for people to get drunk knowing they are not going to jail or get in trouble. They wont learn from their consequences. I don’t fully agree with this plan, but at the end it might always help to try something new.

The Right Weapons

The editorial I read from San Antonio Express-News talks about how Texas Education Agency (TEA) should take away Tasers and other weapons like pepper spray from schools. 
The evidence the author uses to agree that this should happen is an incident that happen at Bastrop County of a student getting zapped with a Taser in November, his name is Noe Nino de Rivera. Apparently when this happen he fell to the floor and hit his head. Noe was in a coma for more than 50 days. The Bastrop County Sheriffs said they were trying to break up a fight of two girls when Noe acted very aggressively towards them. But in a video that Austin American-Statesmen shows that the fight had been over for a few minutes and Noe showed no signs of aggression when on of the officers shot him.
Another way the author backs up his agreement is by saying that Tasers can shock up to 50,000 volts. He says there is no reason for this kind of weapon to be use on students in schools, which I agree. He approaches the fact that there is many other tools they can use for law enforcement officers. No reason to use a Taser to control students. He gives an example of how in Houston Independent School District officers use pepper foam instead of spray, less likely to harm people. 
At the end the authors talks about how a number of civil rights and social justice organizations have asked the TEA to ban Tasers and other weapons like pepper spray. 
I do agree with the author when it comes to using less harmless weapons for students. There is no need to use such powerful weapon when officers can use different techniques. The author gave great points and good evidence to back up why he agrees.